A Day in the Life of a Reformed Henchman
by beb
Summary: The 4th season finale brought many changes to the Venture Brothers universe. What will happen in the future? What about the reformed Henchman 21 becoming the new Venture Bros bodyguard? Life won't be easy between the Monarch after Gary and a new assassin.
1. Chapter 1

"Aaagggh! Hank, it's the Monarch! Run, little Bro, run!" Dean dropped the chamois cloth he was polishing Brock's car with and ran towards the rear door in the empty airplane hanger. He missed the door by a good six feet, bounced off the plywood interior paneling and collapsed on the floor. In the silence a large fart could be heard.

"All right, mister, stay right there," Hank Venture swung around to face their visitor. He held his hands menacingly. "I know Kung Fu, Karate and Ti Chi! My hands are registered weapons in six countries!"

"Come on, nobody registers hands as weapons. I know, I tried. I'm Gary, your new bodyguard."

"Brock Samson is our only bodyguard," Hank insisted. He slowly spun around to follow the chunky young man with the five o'clock shadow as he walked over to a table and sit a briefcase on it. Two suitcases were dropped to the floor. He turned back just in time to see Hank, his legs twisted around each other, fall to the floor. Even as he fell Hank held his arms in what he assumed as attack formation.

"Daddy, why does the bed smell like hot monkeys?" Dean was groaning from his vantage point on the ground.

"OK. listen up," Gary said in imitation of a Command Voice. "Brock Samson is your nominal body guard but he's also Col. Gather's right-hand man when it comes to special assignments. So I've been assigned here to cover for Brock when he's called away. As he is just now. Something going on in Brungaria. So until he comes back you are to do whatever I tell you, when I tell you and with no lip, back chatter or smirking. Got that?"

"But aren't you, like 21 from the Monarch?" Hank asked before untangling his feet and getting up.

"Those days are behind me." Gary said in a dramatic voice. "I'm with OSI now."

"Does that mean you're not...evil?" Dean asked from behind the safety of a 55 gallon drum.

"Of course I'm not evil. I'm reformed. I quit the Monarch and joined OSI."

"Don't you have to grow your hair long and wear it in dreadlocks when you're reform." Hank wondered.

"Wow!" Gary shook his head in amazement. "When Brock said you guys were special I guess he really meant 'special'. You're thinking of Hassidic Jews. Here! Brock wrote you guys an introduction." Gary pulled a small square device out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Dean.

"This isn't a letter, it's an MP3 player." Dean protested.

"You know Brock's not big on writing. Just listen to it."

Dean had found the play button and pressed it. "Boys," Brock's harsh voice began, "this is me. I'm not going to be able to come back to the compound as quickly as I'd hoped. Col. Gathers has some special missions; things he needs cleaned up so I'll be away for a while. Anyway this is - um - Gary. He used to hench for the Monarch but he decided to join the OSI. He'll be in charge of you guys while I'm gone. He's not quite up to OSI standards yet but he's a lot better than anything that Monarch has to throw at you. So do what he says, just like if I were giving the orders, OK? Unless he turns evil again, then - well - I guess you ought to stop him. Oh, and don't touch my stuff." Brock's message stop as abruptly as it began.

"Wow, you can turn evil?" Hank wondered.

"My evil days are behind me," Gary insisted. "I was just wasting my life henching for the Monarch. Now I want to do something meaningful."

""Like keep us alive?"

"Uh - yeah - that too. So, where do I bunk?"

"Well, since you're taking Brock's place you could use his room," Dean suggested.

"No way is he taking Brock's room," Hank objected. "He's not Brock. He's not fit to use Brock's room!"

"Uh, yeah. I wasn't going to anyway. You heard what Brock said about touching his stuff. You got some place else." Gary crossed his arms against his massive chest and waited impatiently.

"Well, there's Sgt. Hatred's room," Dean suggested.

"Dad said to burn everything in it," Hank reminded him.

"There's the guard shack by the main entrance. It's got it's own toilet and everything - microwave, minifridge, TVs that can pick up everything..."

"You mean surveillance camera?" Gary asked.

"No, like everything. It has it's own satellite dish," Dean asserted. "It can pick up Gargantus 2, the secret Lunar base, even the Martians although you do not want to reply to anything the Martians say. They think it's an invitation to invade or something. Boy was my face red when they came that one time when I spoke to them and they tried to take over the Earth."

"That's because you called their Supreme Leader a "doo-doo head!" Hank interrupted.

"I don't recall any alien invasion." Gary looked at the boys dubiously.

"There was a lot of brain washing." Dean conceded.

Gary looked at the brothers. Were they pulling his leg, or had Dean really started an interplanetary war. His briefing on his charges suggested that either could have happened. "Go with the flow," Brock had advised him. "If that TV can bring in Skinimax then I'm in. Let's go look at it." He took a final glance around the hanger they were in, checking the security of the perimeter.

He saw a glint far off in the hills surrounding the Venture Compound. Without stopping to think, Gary leaped for Hank while shouting, "Everyone down!"

A bullet bounced off the floor where Hank had been standing with a "zing!" and ricocheted into the distance.

Gary dragged Hank behind a pile of airplane tires for the X-1 then stood up with the knives lashed to his forearms extended. He could see the glint of light reflecting off a telescopic sight, then it disappeared. He looked around for more immediate dangers but there were none. Reluctantly, Gary hit the retract lever causing his knifes to slide back into their holders.

"What's the idea, man?" Hank demanded.

"Bullet!" Gary snapped. "You two, into the house and stay put. I'm going out to recon."

"Nyet!"

A stilettoed boot jammed down on the rifle the girl was holding, forcing your fingers out of the trigger guard.

"We are assassins. We only kill when we are paid to!" The owner of the boot continued, speaking in a heavy Russian drawl. "Did someone pay us to kill the Venture Brothers?"?

The girl on the ground with the rifle shivered. Molotov Cocktease on a rage was not a pleasant person.

"No," the girl answered. She was about 18-19, tall, heavy chested, with dyed black hair with one magenta streak. Her face was thin, emaciated from too many drugs. 50s era transistors hung from her ears as decorations. The ring in her eyebrow, however was a capacitance detector that warned her of high voltage electric fields. She was dressed in a slick black outfit that covered her from head to feet. The boots were heeled - only 2 inches. Rank was indicated by the amount of heel one was permitted to wear. The suit was without any decoration except for a bright red heart over the nipple of her left breast. Most other uniforms have the insignia over the heart, a few inches towards the center of the chest. But the Blackhearts were an all-girl crew and said as much by placing their insignia were it was most visible.

"They have not!" Molotov repeated. "So - do we shot at the Venture Brothers? - no, we do not!"

"But he's my arch," the girl protested.

"Hank Venture? Ha! Do we belong to the Guild of Calamitous Intent? We do not! Only the Guild Archs other people. We are Blackhearts! We are professional assassins. Do not get the two confused. Now come my disobedient Kim. It's an hour in the punishment room for you."

Kim Duquenes sighed, put her rifle on safety and got up. She looked at her commander and shuddered. Molotov Cocktease towered over her, and would have even in her bare feet. She was a tall, rail thin woman, with slender hips and enormous and improbably high breasts all but revealed by the open front of her uniform that ran nearly down to her pubes. Molotov spun on her heels and marched away, Kim followed, head down. She wasn't afraid of the whipping that would follow. Since getting hooked on drugs, pain and feelings of self-loathing were an everyday experience. She was a bad girl. She deserved getting beat. What she didn't like was all the lesbian banter that went along with it. If she was going to get felt up she's rather it was by a guy, someone like that Brock Samson Cocktease was always going on about. Such a rough player he was, so strong, so domineering! He probably put out her eye for not coming across before this. Kim would have, if she were a man.

"Look, have you ever met the Venture Brothers?" she asked.

"Many times, actually. I have even - "babysat" - them."

"Yeah, but I went on a date with them. A Date!"

"And thus you hate the Venture Brothers? What did he do, stick his tongue down your throat, feel up those delectable breasts of yours?" Molotov teased.

"He didn't do any of that. I would have respected that if he had. He talked about Batman all night. And made cheap puns that only a ten year old would have found funny."

"He was boring, my little dumpling, and for that he has to die?"

"Yeah. I mean, no! I mean - Actually, yeah. I never met a man who so deserved to die before. And I swore I would be the one to do it, too!"

"But only if someone pays us to do it. Until then the Ventures are out of bounds, off-season. Verboten. Do you catch my drift?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good!" They walked the mountain side until they came to a car parked at the end of a trail. A Mercedes, black with tinted windows. As Molotov unlocked the doors she smiled that the girl. :"Do not be so downcast, my pet, he is, after all, a Venture. How long can it be before someone wants us to kill them?"

Gary spent most of an hour circling around to the place where he'd spotted the glint of light on glass. He was practising his stealth and stalking abilities. Finding where the girl had laid in wait with the rifle wasn't all that hard. The grass was crushed down in a large patch where she had lain. He didn't know whether the assassin was a man or a woman until he had laid down in the patch and breathed deeply of the soil there. The scent of perfume was strong on the ground. Gary had no idea what sort of perfume it was, having had little contact with women in his years henching for the Monarch, but knew he would recognize it if he ever smelt it again.

There were a lot of tiny heel marks punched into the ground. Stiletto heels! Blackhearts! But they had lead a away after just one shot. Had someone hired them? Or had someone gone off the reservation. Gary trailed them down to where a car had sat. He filed a report using his new Venture two-way communicator then headed back to the compound.

Doc Venture had not been pleased to find that his new bodyguard was the former Monarch Henchman #21. Gary had another letter from Brock to deal with that. That didn't stop Dr. Venture from grousing no end about how Venture Enterprises was not some employer of last resort, that he didn't like the way Ex-Nemesis and Ex-henchmen were being pushed on him as his bodyguards and that he was an important man and deserved a professional. Gary had hauled Dr, Venture off to detention in the Cacoon more than a couple times while he had been henching for The Monarch and was use to Dr. Venture's diatribes. It didn't make them hurt less when he was called a fat, over-grown oaf.

Brock had explained something to Gary before sending him out on this assignment. "Look - ah - Gary (Brock always had trouble remembering not to call him 21 any more) "The Ventures are a big name among super-villainy..."

"Him?" Gary had asked questioningly.

"Nah, his father, but everybody figures, you know, 'like father, like son.' So we keep a close watch on him knowing that eventually all the bad guys are going to try to kidnap him and steal his father's inventions. It's what they call a 'honeytrap.' So don't let his complaining get to you, and don't get let yourself get soft just because it looks like nothing's happening. Because something always comes up and when it does you've got to be at your best. Got it?"

24 had gone on about honeytraps once when they were playing on-line D&D. You had to be careful about what sites you visited on-line because some looked good but they only existed to upload porn to your computer. And viruses. That was before he died. Looking around the living room of the Venture Residence, a large 50s era collection of low furniture and throw pillows Gary found himself thinking too much about his past, henching for the Monarch and his best friend, 24. He had to get out of here - at least for a while.

Nightning Ales was across the street from the equally infamous "VIDEO HO S ", both victims of defective neon lighting. Gary walked into the strip club in casual wear, black jeans and a white polo shirt. He'd combed his hair back and even shaved twice so that his chin for once was nearly hairless. He dropped a twenty for the cover charge and another five for a beer that tasted watery. At that point he realized that he didn't have much more money to have a good time on. The OSI had given him some traveling money but his first real paycheck wouldn't come for two weeks.

Then again, looking at the local talent, he suspected he wouldn't be spending a lot of money here.

Finishing his first beer a little too fast, he ordered another and moved across to a booth where he could lean back on the cushions and people-watch He'd been sitting there for maybe five minutes when a nearly naked woman slipped into the booth beside him, took his arm and draped it over her shoulder and scooted real close.

"Do I know you lady?" Gary asked. She had enormous fake boobs encased in a very small bra and a double trail of pin-pricks down the length of her arm.

"Brock?" she asked, squinting through mascaraed eyes.

"Gary."

"Really." She continued squinting. "Eh, wanna a lap dance?"

"Not now. I just got here."

"Your loss." she got up. "Well, whenever your ready, just give ol' Robin the high sign."

Gary sipped his beer and watched the dancers lurching about on the stage like so many zombies. The room was fairly empty but with what they were charging for cover and drinks Gary suspected they were still doing OK. He wondered why the old whore had thought he was Brock. He looked across the narrow room to the mirror behind the bar. The whole place was covered in mirrors but this one gave a clear view of himself. The shirt, the pants, the mullet. My god, he did look like Brock. Too much so. He tried combing his hair to the side and folded the collar of his polo shirt inside so it looked more like a pull-over. He had come to idolize Brock Samson, the epitome of the professional spy but he didn't mean to go all fanboy over him. New clothes, new haircut first thing in the morning!

"Well, you don't buy beer, you only rent it," Gary sighed, got up and searched for the restroom. It was down a narrow hall with "dudes," "dames" and "employees only" painted on the three doors there. He was about to enter "dudes" when a girl came out of "dames." Gary stepped to the left to let her pass, only to find that she'd stepped to the left as well. Gary moved to the right, but so had she. He flattened against the wall, which didn't open up that much space considering his girth.

"Oh, I thought we were dancing," she laughed. She turned sideway to scuttle past him. Her heavy breasts slide across his chest like a line of fire.

"I'm sitting over there," Gary pointed out his table, "if you'd like to wait until I get back."

"But" she started to say, then after looking him over, gave him a smile and finished with "sure."

She was sitting at his table when Gary came out of the restroom, a martini in her hand. She smiled as he sat down and asked "Did you wash your hands?"

"What?"

"The sign in the restroom said all employees must wash their hands."

"I'm not an employee."

"Neither am I."

"Oh? Sorry! I didn't mean to ... it's just, you know. This is a strip club I just assumed..." His face was beet red as he tried to apologize.

"Hey, it's OK," she said with a laugh. "I was just teasing. There's, like, no other bars open in this town. What a hickburg, right. So if you want to wet your whistle, you come here, no matter what your sex is."

"Oh, sorry. It's just you're the only pretty lady in this joint and I didn't mean to offend."

"None take. So did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Wash your hands?"

"Of course I did. I'm not a pig. Also I flushed and would have raised the seat on the toilet, only I was using the urinal."

"OK, that was too much information! So what's your name. I'm Kim."

"Gary. I just started work near here and wanted to check out the lay of the land."

"Was that a double entendre?"

"What? No."

"Pity."

Kim finished her drink and held up the empty glass for the bartender to see. He was over in a minute with a refill. She put it to her lips and poured half the glass down her throat in a single gulp. Gary looked at her a little appalled.

"Rough day at work," she explained. "The boss yelled at me all afternoon.

"I had a boss like that, too" Gary said. "Always shouting. 'Minions do this, minions do that. Got tired of being a minion."

Kim looked at him oddly for a moment, then dismissed the 'minion' comment. She saw a beefy young man of middle height. There were lines about his eyes as of he had seen, if not "too much", certainly a lot. His hands were large and capable. There was an animal musk about him coming out from under his cologne. Gary in turn saw a girl with a big smile, big hair with a wild streak of red in it. She wore a short skirt with suspenders, a striped vest unbutton half-way down. When he looked at just the right angle he could see part of her bra. Below her skirt were fishnet stockings held up by visible snaps from her garter belt. Short velvet boots were on her feet, with surprising low heels. Gary had practised memorizing stuff until he could recall as many as eight things on a tray after only looking at it for ten seconds. Remembering what a girl was wearing when she was a hot piece of tail was easy.

Kim had leaned back into the booth and was now sipping at her drink. "I must be keeping your from getting a lap-dance. That's what you came here for, wasn't it?"

"Well..."

"Go ahead. It's OK. I like to watch. Hell, I'll even pay for it!" She smiled. "How 'bout that girl? She looks - pretty clean?"

Gary would have objected that she was too flat-chested. But he was really turned off by Kim's comment about liking to watch. The Monarch had liked to watch, too, apparently, while Dr. Mrs. The Monarch had torn his heart out.

"Maybe I should hire one of these girls to give you a lap dance," Gary answered, wanting to see how far Kim would go.

"I've already had one. Anyway I don't swing that way. Now if you wanted to give me a lap dance..."

Gary leaned over and kissed her. He may not know as much about women as the great Brock Samson but he knew an open invitation when he heard one.

He was short of breath by the time they broke off. Also he had a piece of olive stuck in his teeth.

"You got some place where we could be more private?" the girl asked.

"I wish. I just get here today. I have no idea how the boss feels about ladies in my room," Gary said with a sigh.

"I know. We girls are closely watched as well."

Gary thought that he could possible sneak her into the back of Brock's car at the compound but that sort of conflicted with Brock's hands-off-my-stuff rule.

Kim tossed off the rest of her drink then whispered, "let's go." Gary followed her out into the early evening darkness. They kissed some more on the veranda outside the club. Gary was on the verge of suggesting they look for a deserted park bench or picnic tale to finish urgent business when Kim's wristwatch started beeping.

"Shit! Curfew! Gary, this has been the most fun I've had since getting out of rehab. You going to here tomorrow night?"

"Maybe."

"Well, if you are, call this number," she scribbled on a piece of paper. "If anyone but me answers hang up and don't come here. OK?"

"Sure." he carefully folded up her paper and put it in his shirt pocket. He looked up and she was gone. A minute later a bottle rocket ignited a block over, and tore into the sky. It had disappeared before he could spot it.

He walked, a bit stiffly, down the parking lot to the motorcycle stalls and unlocked what looked like a child-size Harley. Gary didn't know whose bike this was. It was just there at the compound. As such he figured he had as much right as anyone to use it. He got it started and cruised out of the lot. "Curfew?" Gary thought as each bump in the gravel lot reminded him of their unfinished business. "If I didn't know better I'd think she was a spy or something."

Gary had just come in from his morning five mile run. (Truth be told it was more like 2 miles. Maybe a mile and a half. At the very least a full mile.) When he was approached by a bearded man wearing a long, flowing bath robe. "I am Doctor Byron Orpheus!" he declaimed in a loud voice. Are you the one they call - 'Gary'?"

"Yeah. What are you doing on the Venture Compound?"

"I! live! here!"

"No, according to the floor plan you live in that building over there. This is the Venture Compound. I'm in charge of security on the Venture Compound and by my book, you're trespassing."

"Oh, for heavens sake, boy, I have free run of the entire complex. I have saved Dr. Venture's life on numerous occasions. I'm not just a tenant, I am a friend!"

"Yeah, yeah. What do you want?"

"My daughter is coming home for a visit. I haven't seen her in Six! Month! I want her visit to be a pleasant as possible so I would appreciate it if you could take the boys away somewhere."

"Why? I thought Dean was dating your daughter?"

"He! Is! Not!" Orpheus again struck a dramatic pose and shouted.

"Funny, because that's what he said."

"He is wrong, which is why I do not want my daughter running into the misguided fool and causing a scene."

"Where am I supposed to take them. I just got here last night. I don't know anything about this town."

"I don't care so much where you go so long as my daughter does not have to run into," he shuddered, "Dean Venture." Orpheus turned and strode away, as if he had issued a command that Gary was sure to follow.

"You're not the boss of me, now," Gary muttered, entering the guard shack he had made into his new home.

A couple hours later, dressed in an ill-fitting Venture Enterprise jumpsuit Gary was sitting the in the X-1's hanger watching Hank show off a various tech devices they had to defend themselves. Dean was ignoring them by reading a volume of Giant Boy Detective. There was a lot of cool stuff here but Gary was beginning to see why Brock relied on his knife. It was simple. It was reliable, and you didn't need to wade through a dozen levels of menus to make it work.

A wave of strangeness sweep over the three of them. Gary looked out the open door of the hanger and saw a ripple in the air at the gated entrance to Venture Enterprise. The ripple deepened then split open. A moment later a man on a horse rode through the gateway. As he turned horse and pulled back on the reigns they could see someone riding on the back of his saddle. It was a girl with purple hair, wearing a black t-shirt with a skull, a short skirt and long striped stockings.

"Trianna!" Dean shouted, dropped the book he was reading and raced out the hanger door.

Gary watched in amazement. "I take it he knows her?" he asked Hank.

"Yeah, Trianna. She's hot."

"So, this is Doctor Orpheus's daughter? I was supposed to keep Dean away from her."

Dean had caught up with the Trianna and the man on the horse. He offered his hand to help her down but she brushed his hand aside, slide one leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground unassisted.

"Thanks for the lift, Outrider." she said.

"Now, darlin'," he said. "Call me Dad."

Trianna put her hands on her hips and stared up at him. "We've have this conversation before. You may be living with my mom but that doesn't make you my dad. My dad lives over there. I'm not your darling, your pet or anything. You're just the man who broke up my parent's marriage. Got it!"

"As you wish. Sunday at 6, then? Or would you rather I send a limo?"

"Sunday will be fine." She turned away and nearly bumped into Dean.

Dean smiled brightly for a moment then the smile drooped off his face as she scowled at him.

"I hope you're not planning to burn any more crosses in our lawn while I'm here." She began.

"Yeah - I'm sorry about that. In hindsight I can see that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do."

"You think? Dean, why can't you think of these things before you do them?"

"You must hate me."

Most people have to practice that kicked puppy look. With Dean it came naturally.

"I don't hate you, Dean. I like you - as a friend. But the only thing we ever had together was that we lived next door to each other. That's all."

"And our dads."

"What does our dads have to do with anything. My father is a famous necromancer. You father is a - what?"

"A super-scientist!" Dean explained. "He's done incredible things. Anyway Necromancy, super science, it's all the same thing..."

"No it's not. Only people who are sensitive to the vibrations of the other realm came perform magic..."

"Not that. It's the stuff about fighting super villains, doing good, being the white knight to the world.

"Geez, Dean, what have you been reading lately? Oh, never mind. I will concede that our fathers can be - difficult. Which is why I want this weekend to go smoothly. I don't want you hovering over my shoulder all the time. OK?"

Dean's puppy-dog expression was getting longer. Oh, please don't start crying, she thought.

"Hey, Trianna, how's it going? Raising the dead yet?"

Oh, great, the goth girl thought. Wingus _and_ Dingus!

"It takes a lot of study before you can raise the dead. I'm just beginning. There's a lot to learn." Trianna wondered how she was going to get rid of both Venture Brothers. Then she had an idea. "I've learned to do one trick, though. I can make a flower blossom. Watch."

Trianna stepped away from the boys and spread her arms dramatically. She chanted in a strange language for a moment, then pointed at the ground before her. There was a brief flash of light as if a bubble of energy had popped. The grass stirred, swayed and slowly a thick, waxy stalk poked its tip out from among the finer grass blades straighten and rose several inches about the grass, a green bulb grew on the tip of the stalk and and after a brief shiver opened into a round and bright yellow flower.

"Trianna! That was awesome," Dean said.

"Brock is gonna be so mad when he gets back," Hank complained. "You grew an dandelion in his lawn."

"It was already there. I just made it blossom. Oh, forget it. Some people just have no appreciation." She stooped and plucked the dandelion and sniffed it. It gave off a light, pleasant fragrance. There wasn't a button-hole on her shirt for it, so she stuck it behind her ear. Her hair covered it up instantly but she knew it was there, a thing of her own creation.

Hank was kneeling in front of her with a pocket knife out, slicing around the base of the flower. Gently he pulled the root out and shook the dirt off it. "Brock has worked on hands and knees for years to eliminate every dandelion in sight. I won't let a single one plant its roots here while he's gone!"

"Later, Dean," she called as she picked up the small backpack the Outrider had dropped before he left. Before she had taken a dozen steps toward's the part of the Venture Compound they called home, her father was running across the lawn, robes flying. "Pumpkin!" he cried as he sweep her up in a smothering embrace.

Then seeing the circle of boys surrounding her his eyes narrowed menacingly. "I thought I told you to keep this - this - person away from my daughter." he said to Gary while pointing to Dean.

Gary rocked back into a relaxed combat stance. "Is you name Thaddeus S. Venture?" he asked.

"I am Doctor Orpheus!" the Necromancer roared, "as you well know!"

"Yeah, but you see: I work for Dr. Venture. So if your name isn't Venture, you don't have the right to tell me squat."

"Why you impudent little pup. I'll teach you to defy the will of Doctor Byron Orpheus!"

Gary brought his arms up, the knifes strapped to his arms extended, kind of like Wolverine's claws. "Bring it on, Old Man."

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Can't I just come home to see me father without World War 3 breaking out!" Wiping the tears from her eyes, Trianna began running to the building where the father loved.

"This isn't over!" Dr. Orpheus warned before hurrying after his daughter. He caught up with her after a moment and lead her to the building, talking all the while about the things he had planned for them over the weekend.

Trianna found herself revising the list of things she needed to talk to her father about. Trying to run her life remained at number one, but bumped up to number two was the matter of calling her "pumpkin."

The three boys wandered back to the empty hanger. Gary picked up one of the Venture rapid-fast pistols and started tasking it apart. Hank found a couple G. I. Joe dolls at the bottom of the box of weapons he'd been showing Gary and was now re-enacting some fight between the Joes and Sphinx. Dean picked up the book he'd dropped earlier and held it for a while before realizing that he was holding it upside down. He turned it around and opened it at random. Several minutes passed without Dean turning a page. From time to time he would look at Gary, then turn back to the book.

"Aren't you going to say something?" he asked finally.

Gary looked at him in confusion. "About what?"

"Girls, love, growing up, stuff, letting go of the past."

"What do I know about girl," Gary said gloomily. I'm nearly thirty years old and I'm still living with my mom. At least when I wasn't henching for the Monarch. The only girl I've ever kissed was my bosses wife and even that was part of a joke."

"You kissed Dr. Girlfriend?" Hank exclaimed.

"It's Dr. Mrs. The Monarch," Dean corrected.

"No, Dr. Mrs, the Lying Bitch," Gary finished.

"Dad says her boobies are fake," Dean wondered.

"Brock says she used to be a man." Hank laid down his dolls and sat in a chair across from Gary. "Is she?"

"How would I know?" Gary complained. "She looks like a woman..."

"And what a woman," Hank added.

"Yeah but with plastic surgery what it is today, how would you know."

"Her hips are too big to be a man's," Dean observed. It's one of the things they're always going on about on CSI. And no Adam's Apple, though I hear they can shave those down."

"Dean - shut up!" Hank was hanging on to Gary's every word.

"I - I thought she liked me. She was always complimenting me on things well-done. Some times she'd come over the console I was working at to look at something and she'd brush up against me. All but shoving those tits of her in my face. She'd send me on secret missions to smuggle her cigarettes into the Cocoon. and all this time I thought she had feeling towards me the way I felt towards me. But it was all a lie!"

Gary paused to let a flood of emotion wash away before going on.

"Apparently they discovered my crush and were playing a game with me all along. She'd been rubbing up against me to see how it would take for me to lose it. And of course I did, and then she just laughed at me..."

"Yeah. we were there. It was during our Prom."

"So what do I know about women, huh?"

"You gonna fight the Monarch for her?" Dean wondered

"Are you nuts? She's dead to me!"

"You don't have the least little bit of feeling for her?" Dean persisted.

"She broke my heart. There's nothing left to feel."

"Ouch!" Hank said.

Gary picked up the disassembled automatic pistol. He sighted down the barrel then started putting the rest of it together. "I wouldn't mind the Monarch attacking so I can give him what for. He was the one egging her on, getting his jollies from watching his own wife make out with other men. That's sick. I'd love to smash his whining little face in. But Dr. Girlfriend can go to hell."

He'd found an old recliner in a storage locker and dragged it into his new "command center." He set it up so he'd have a clear view of all the perimeter camera monitors, easy access to the toilet and the back door. There was room enough for a cot but at the moment Gary liked the idea of sleeping on the recliner where he could keep an eye on things even when asleep. There was a small closet where he hung his spare clothes, and a paper bag at the bottom where he's stuffed the polo shirts that looked too much like what Brock would wear. His underwear went into a filing cabinet. He wrote a big "U" on the front of the drawer in a moment of whimsy.

And at 8 O'clock on the dot he called the number Kim had given him. She answered on the first ring. "The bar, 9 o'clock" she said and hung up before he could even say "Hello."

The bar, huh? That's sounded pretty promising. Fore-warned is four-arms or something like, Gary broke into Brock's room and liberated a handful of condoms. He'd replace them later, of course, but he needed them now. Or at least hoped he would.

The question of a private room bugged him since he still didn't know enough of the downtown to find a vacant motel room. Also he was a little embarrassed to be riding around on a midget's motorcycle, so he snuck back into Brock's room and took the keys to the Charger. This was definitely "messing" with Brock's stuff. But he figured Brock would understand. It's all about the ladies. Nine O'clock found him pacing nervously outside Nightnin'Ales. Five minutes and one pre-ulcer later Kim came around the corner of building and greeted him with a wet sloppy kiss. They went inside.

It was nearly midnight by the time Gary carefully backed the Charger back into the exact place it had been before he's borrowed it. He was walking somewhat bow-legged as he moved around the car checking that every thing was back whee it should be. He tossed the keys in the air and caught them, planning to put them back in Brock's room, then deciding that he just might want to borrow the Charger again. Kim had nearly pulled him into the back seat as soon as he unlocked the doors. A woman like that wasn't going to take this as a one-night stand. He put the keys back in his pocket. He could imagine the grief he'd catch if Brock ever found out he'd used the Charger, and in fact much later he did, since he had forgotten to set the seat and rear view mirrors to the positions they had been before. After an hour of screaming at him, Brock stopped, sighed, and asked if it had been worth it. "Oh yeah," Gary assured him.

But that was later.

Now, Gary was walking and floating on cloud nine at the same time, back to his bunk. he stopped short of the door as something flickered in the window of the guard shack. A shadow disappearing where one shouldn't be in the first place.

"I know you hate me," a deep voice whispered, "but I can't let you walk into a trap."

Gary looked behind, into the eyes of his dead friend, 24. "I know they're there. At least three."

"Four"

"You're dead. Don't confuse me with facts.

"I'm a spirit, set to wander this world..."

"Another time."

"But I'm real! Ask Dr. O."

"And I'm psychotic seeing you."

"Can I at least stick around to see you take them?" The voice faded away as did 24's visage.

Grasping the doorknob with one hand, Gary inserted the key and softly turned it. He could feel, but not hear the deadbolt retract. He stuck the keys back in his pocket and, still holding the door in place, planted one foot on the ground and the other on the door. A deep breath followed by a loud scream Gary kicked the door open, banging the person hiding behind it into the wall and out of commission.

The guy on the other side of the door missed with his garrote as Gary barrel rolled into the room. As he popped up someone dropped out of the ceiling on to his back. Gary spun around and felt the garrote intended for him slip around the neck of his attacker. An elbow in the kidneys got the man to let go, though he was already too busy fighting the garrote to fight anyone else.

Gary let the garroter strangle his compatriot for another minute before lashing out with a flying roundhouse kick that sent him bouncing off the wall and falling into a heap on top the first man. Gary unwrapped the wire cord from around the strangling man, picked him up by the collar and threw him through the open door. He was not surprised by the folded wings on the man's costume. He went over to the two men piled up by the door and pulled both of them to their feet before kicking them out.

He slammed the door and bolted it before turning on the lights. Nothing looked disturbed except for the open panel in the drop-down ceiling. Piling up a couple chairs Gary hoisted himself into the crawl space overhead. A faint trail in the dust showed where the henchmen had entered the guard shack through an air conditioner vent. He'd put a grill over that in the morning.

Gary dropped back to the floor and thought about 24 had told him. Lately he'd decided that 24 didn't really exist, he was just a projection of his own heightened combat senses. But...

The door to his clothes closet was open a crack. Not like he had left it. He sprang to the door and yanked it open.

"Don't kill me!" squeaked the henchman cowering on the floor. "Please!"

Gary looked at the number inscribed on the henchman's helmet. "Geeze, 130. You'll never get into the double-digits acting like this. How many times do I have to tell you, you'll never get anywhere hiding in a closet."

"I think this is the first time - sir!"

Gary wrinkled his nose. "130.- did you - soil yourself?"

"Maybe."

"Sheesh. Get your stinky ass out of here. You're in more trouble with the monarch than you are with me." He grabbed the henchman and dragged him off the floor, unlocked the door and throw him out. "And when you see the Monarch tell him next time to do it himself - if he has the balls!"


	2. Chapter 2

The sun shining through the broad plate windows of the Guard Shack woke Gary far earlier then he had expected. He draped an arm across his eyes and contemplated sleeping in a bit longer. It had been a long night what with Kim and the assassination squad. Besides the Monarch never attacked during the day; he was a night person. So there wasn't much need for a security watch this early in the day. But after a while Gary had to admit to himself that falling back to sleep wasn't going to happen. He might as well get up.

He set the recliner to its upright position and glanced at the row of monitors in front of him. About half of them were dead. That went to the top of the day's to-do list - walk the perimeter of the compound and check on all the sensors. He supposed that in the end he had been responsible for most of the dead sensors - back when he was a henchman for The Monarch.

Gary did a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups before taking a shower. He had cheated a bit on the sit-ups but figured he had done enough to keep in battle trim. Gary's determination to be a mean, clean fighting machine fought daily with a lifetime of sloth. He searched through the Guard Shack until he found a spool of wire, a pair of pliers and a roll of water-proof electrical tape. He suspected that most of the defunct sensors simply had their wires cut. A little splicing would put them back into shape.

For breakfast Gary wandered into the Venture Residence and snooped around in the kitchen until he found some power bars behind some boxes of cereal. He stuck several in the shirt pocket of his new Venture Industries jumpsuit and armed with a clipboard, set out.

He was having a pleasant walk, with breaks from time to time to fix one of the security camera. The sun was bright but not too hot, the breezes fragrant with smell of pine trees. Birds chirped in the trees. "I could get used to this," Gary thought to himself. He was mangling the words to "Who do you love" - singing about 'walking 47 miles of barb wire...'" when he spotted something lying in the grass ahead. It was about the size of a football, black with red splotches all over it. With a grimace Gary bent down and picked up the head of a Monarch henchman. He turned it over until he could see the face. It was 130.

Poor bastard.

Gary didn't have any especial memories of 130 but it was a shame to have to die to feed the Monarch's rage. Poor fellow was only trying to stay alive and see where it got him. Gary didn't blame him for being a coward, he had been a coward once, before 24 had died and he'd lost all purpose in life. It was easy to be brave when living had no great appeal.

He tucked the severed head under his arm and headed back to the Guard Shack. He'd have to call the Guild of Calamitous Intent to find out where to send the head. The Guild was good about organizing decent burials for whatever remains of a henchmen could be found. It was part of their "Cradle to Grave" insurance coverage.

He wrapped the head in plastic and stuck it into the mini-fridge in the Shack. Rightfully the fridge ought to be filled with beer but he hadn't time to made a run into town to pick up personal supplies. He made the call, got an address, then hunted around to find a box to mail it in. He dumped in all the ice he could find in the Residence and called Fed-Ex for a pick-up. He found an old, unused notebook and logged his morning. Slapping the book shut he wondered if this was how it was always going to be - seemingly uneventful days filled with sudden, gruesome surprises?

The chirping of his wrist two-way communicator confirmed his suspicion. "Brock, get these boys out of my hair," Dr Venture barked without looking to see who had answered the communicator. Gary was about to explain that he wasn't Brock but the Doctor had already broken the connection.

"Who are you? Where's Brock?" Dr. Venture demanded when Gary got to the Residence.

"I'm Gary. We meet yesterday. I'm filling in for Brock. "

"I thought that fat guy - my would-be nemesis - Hatred? - was filling in for Brock."

"Hatred went A. W. O. L. after reconciling with his wife." Gary explained. "He hasn't reported in to OSI, hasn't been seen at his residience at Malice..." That was the Gated communiity over in the next country where various super-villains and retired super-villains lived. "He hasn't been taking his medications as far as can be told. So we think he's reverting to super-villainy. In fact, if he shows up here, you should treat him as a Hostile."

"Whatever," Dr. Venture snapped.." I've got importance science stuff to do and I can't think while the boys are running around like a couple of mad men."

The important science stuff Venture mentioned appeared to be watching The View. Hank and Dean were sitting quietly on opposite sides of the room making faces at each other.

"What are we going to do, 21?" Hank asked.

"Gary!" Gary corrected.

"Are we going to hunt for bad guys? Clear out the mole people that have been living in our sewers? Oh, I know, how about we race cars down the X-1's runaway?"

"We're not hunting bad guys. My job is to keep you alive, not get you killed. And there are no 'mole people' living in the drains. I'm pretty sure the alligators have eaten them all."

The boys moped the rest of the way to the airplane hanger, Gary was racking his brain for something to entertain the boys. What would two nerdy, reclusive boys want to do. Of course! What nerdy boy didn't want to play Dungeons and Dragons!

He had all his stuff stowed away at his mothers but he figured he could get the boys started with some paper and a regular pair of dice. And later he could have the OSI ship his stuff from his mom.

Out in the hanger he explained the rules, how the game was played and handed out some paper for them to work on their characters. As Dungeon master he quickly worked out a fairly simple game based on some of the games he used to play before joining the Monarch's crew.

Searching for a dramatic tone of voice he began, "You find yourselves in a dark hallway deep underground. In front of you is a large Minotaur. What do you do?"

Hank was wearing a Viking helmet made of paper-máché he'd found somewhere. He studied his sheet of notes intently, clearly at a loss what to do. Dean was biting his lower lip. "We meet a Minotaur once." he said.

"Did not!" Gary blurted out.

"Did so. It was in Peru."

"Bolivia!" Hank corrected.

"Peru! Remember we flew over those mountains and Dad got sick because of those tacos he bought from a street vendor?"

"Bolivia, you dorkhead. The Amazon is in Bolivia -"

"Brazil," Gary corrected. "The Amazon flows through Brazil." 

"But parts of it are in Peru."

Gary conceded that that might be true. "So what happened?" he asked,

"He was trying to kill us!"

"That seems par for the course. How did you dispatch him?" Gary asked.

Hank pushed his paper helmet back and leaned forwarded. "It was cool. Pop took an electric motor out of one of the windows in our car and used my belt to make a van der Graff generator. Poked the Minotaur with 50,000 volts. Oh, you should have seem him dance."

"You shouldn't make fun of him," Dean complained. "He died. It's not right to make fun of people who die."

"But he was trying to kill us, you nimrod!"

"Only because we were trying to steal some sacred relic from the people he was trying to protect. The Xixilatl."

"It's pronounced Xichulatl!"

"You've got cotton in your ears, It's Xixilatl! 'ichi' not 'ichu' Can't you read Mayan at all?" Dean had stood up with fists clenched ready to start a fight with his brother.

"So what was so important about this dingus your father was stealing?" Gary asked before things got out of hand.

"It was made out of gold." Dean answered.

"Pop needed it!" Hank stubbornly insisted. "Anyway it wasn't really a Minotaur, just some guy with acromegaly. He had a big lumpy head that just kind of looked like a cows."

"He had cloven feet!"

"Pop said that was some other deformity."

"I thought Minotaurs were limited to Crete," Gary said interrupting the boys' argument. "What's one doing in South America." Both boys shrugged and sat back down.

"Let's start over. "You find yourself in a dark corridor. In a pool in front of you is a mermad..."

"Like Hank's imaginary mermaid that he says he made out with?"

"Teila was not imaginary!"

"You made out with a manatee. You had that fever and were delusional."

"We were looking for Atlantis and I was not delusional. You and Pop had been captured by the Beast-men but Teila rescued me when the X-2 sank. She took me to her home under the sea, feed me and everything."

"Coo-coo!" Dean made whirling signs near his head.

"She had boobies that she let me feel up. Manatees don't have boobs..."

"Actually they do, totally," Gary interrupted. "They're mammals. All mammals have breasts."

"The Platypus doesn't."

"They hardly count as mammals..." Hank insisted.

"Enough. We'll start again. You find yourself in a dark corridor. In front of you is a - have you guys ever met up with a zombie? Gary asked hopefully.

"Quick or slow?" Dean asked.

"What's the difference?"

"The quick are fast and like to eat your brains," Dean explained as if everyone knew this. "The slow just shamble along and try to hug you because they're cold, being dead and all."

"They're not cold," dork-meister," Hank said "They were trying to hump us. Why do you think they kept tearing at our pants."

"They made me wet my pants."

"Look, guys, guys. Is there some monster you haven't met? Werewolf?"

"Dad was one for a while." Dean began

"He got better," Hank finished.

"Mummy?"

"Zombie!" Dean reminded Gary.

"Frankenstein Monster?"

"Dad made one of those."

"Banshee?"

"That turned out to be the guy from AC DC."

"Medusa?" 

"We had to use mirrors so I think that was a Halloween prank Pop pulled on us."

"Godzilla? Motha?"

"Pop's Time Scoop brought back a gigantasaurus once. I thought it ate us, but obviously not. Does that count?"

"Oh, the hell with this! You guys want to go into town and hang out at the mall?"

"Would we?" the boys jumped out of their chairs and stuck two spread fingers together "Go Team Venture!"

"Come on, Gary, join in. You're one of us now."

Standing up to join his fingers with the boys, Gary realized that there were yet more levels of hell.

What would Brock Samson do? Gary wondered idly as, he considered the Venture Industries motor pool. Two jeeps were present. One was wrecked and the other disassembled for some kind of repair. An armored personnel carrier was in a corner of the large, empty garage. An eighteen wheeler was over in another. Neither were exactly the thing for hip young men to be driving around in.

The phrase had been going through his mind a lot. Gary was thinking of getting a bracelet with "WWBD" (What Would Brock Do) engraved on it. Then decided that Brock would consider a bracelet too girly. Taking the boys into town proved more of an obstacle that Gary had realized. That required a car, and not Brock's Charger. For one thing he was afraid that the odor of the previous night's love-making might still linger in the car, and he didn't want the boys suspecting he'd used the car for immoral purposes. But Dr. Venture didn't have a car of his own, he let Brock do whatever driving around he needed, so the motor pool was a bit on the thin side.

Eventually he found an experimental car the old Dr. Venture had been working on. It dated from the 60s, had enormous fins, a bubble top and ran on nuclear power. The idea of driving around in a car that got infinity miles per gallon and could take out a small town if involved in a crash sent a thrill down Gary's spine. If only 24 were here to see this! Here was a car to put the Batmobile to shame! It even came with a Federal "Experimental Vehicle" license so he didn't have to work about getting plates - or insurance.

The car was bigger than the biggest Lincoln Continental he's ever seem, accelerated like a snail, took turns like a tank and needed a mile to brake. No wonder it never went into production. Aside from the Atomic Pile issue. Geiger counters were spotted all around the car and from the crackle of the detectors Gary suspected that long trips in the car was probably not recommended.

By the time Gary turned into the mall it was time for lunch, and to let the boys off the leash, as it were. Hank went over to the department store where a Dermott Fictel worked. Fictel looked like an old, beefier version of Hank. Dean hung around a fountain at the food court in the mall trying to pick up girls. Watching from a distance Gary saw a skinnier version of his teenage self striking out at every attempt to be friendly. At the time he thought the girls just hated him because he was fat but in hindsight he realized that the problem had been that he was boring. He had nothing to talk about and knew nothing of what interested girls. He wasn't sure he knew all that much more about women now, especially after making such a fool over himself over Mrs. Dr. The Monarch.

Rather than think about that fiasco, Gary pulled out his cell phone and called Kim's number. It rang eight times before going to voice mail. He hung up but not before hearing the automatic phone system say that it was "United Conflict Resolution Systems." Since he had some data minutes left on his phone he goggled that name and was surprised when it came up with nothing.

Must be a new company Gary concluded. Too new to be scooped up by Google. Oh well. Conflict resolution? That could be an interesting occupation. Not as interesting as being a spy, of course. He wondered for a moment what kinds of conflicts they resolved and how one goes about resolving conflicts - negotiations, arbitration, assets division... It had to be a stressful job, though, which would explain some of the stress he could see in Kim - and some of the scratches on his back.

Gary was about to circle around and check up on Hank when he noticed that Dean was talking to a girl sat the fountain. She was a mousy looking girl, in oversized jeans and a pull-over, but she had a finger stuck in a book where she had been reading. She didn't have that wary look that says "get me out of here," so Dean must have been talking about something she liked. Gary wondered how long it would take for Dean to say something stupid. Because even though he had been their bodyguard for only one day already Gary had come to realize that Dean (and Hank) being Dean (or Hank) would eventually say something stupid or offensive.

Around three Gary decided he's done his duty as a babysitter; it was time to bring the Venture Brothers home. All during the trip home Dean was talking about the girl he'd met, another fan of Giant Boy Detective. All Gary know about Giant Boy Detective was that he was apparently a giant and solved mysteries. He wondered if a talking dog was involved at all in these stories.

He parked the whale of a car back in the shed it had been stored in for so long. In light of the atomic pile built into it, Gary hoped the shed was lead-lined.

When he got back to the guard shack he decided to sit down on his recliner for a few minutes. It was dark when he woke. He tried Kim's number again. She answered quickly and a quick shower later he was stealing Brock's Charger once again.

It was just shy of midnight when Gary returned. He considered turning in for the night but feeling guilty about the nap he'd taken in the afternoon he decided to make one round of the perimeter before sacking out. He was half way around the grounds, coming back towards the main entrance when, turning a corner he spotted a red light off in the distance.

Instantly he flattened himself against the building. He dropped to the ground and eased an eye around the corner, expecting to be shot at at any minute.

The red light was still there, now more of an orange glow, but situated down the length of the current building near its separate entrance.

As he watched the orange light moved up a little then suddenly became bright red before dropping down again and fading to orange.

Cigarette.

A spy, caught off guard taking a smoke. There were probably other henchmen with him, scattered out doing who knows what. Gary kicked himself for being away from the compound when he was so desperately needed. "I should never have let a woman get in the way of doing my job. What would Brock say?" he thought to himself.

Gary look a quick inventory of himself. Black pants were good. The white polo short not so much. He pulled that off, thinking that his flesh, flabby and white as it was, as still a darker, less reflective hue than the shirt. He pulled off his shoes so he's had a better feel for the ground and avoid stepping on any twigs. He popped his twin knives out of their sleeves. He's taken them off while seeing Kim, and had felt somewhat naked without them. He'd strapped them back on as soon as he'd left her.

Carefully Gary crawled along the base of the building. Whenever the spy raised his cigarette to his face to inhale Gary would leap up and run forward a few yards before dropping silently back to the ground. He figured that with the tip of the cigarette glowing so brightly the spy would not be able to see anything off in the distance.

In only a couple minutes he had reached the edge of the entranceway. A low wall had been built around a small patio. It was knee high and and about as wide, made of field stone and cement. It looked an inviting place to sit. Gary dropping just behind it, panting as silently as he could, while listening for any signs of alarm. It was a little odd that no where could he hear either a sound of alarm or of people scurrying about in the darkness. Well, no matter.

He took a final breath and leaped up with a blood-curdling scream, throwing himself on top the spy, grasping for the head as the fell to the pavement. He fumbled around for a moment to find the head and grasp it for a final, fatal twist, his other hand over the spy's mouth to prevent him from calling out an alarm.

And as suddenly he stopped, letting go of his victim with an apology. As he had jumped up the victim had taken a breath of smoke and in the hot light from the cigarette Gary had seem who his spy was. Triana.

"What the hell?" she hissed, apparently as anxious as he was to avoid raising an alarm.

"I thought you were some henchman come to kill the Ventures. I was just doing my job. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"God! I can't sit out here having a smoke without you going all Brock Samson on me!"

"Weren't you supposed to have gone back to your mother's by now?"

"I decided to stay over for a few more days."

Gary helped her up off the ground. She promptly sat down on the low wall, stretched her back before looking for the cigarette she had been smoking. It had gone out and she couldn't find it in the darkness. She fumbled in the pocket of her skirt and found a crumpled packet. She straightened it out and peer inside before taking one out. She fished out a butane lighter from the pocket, fired up the stick and took a long drag on it.

"Are you going to be doing this all the time I'm here?" she asked.

"Are you going to be smoking out here every night?"

"Not if you're going to jump me every time."

"When did you start smoking?"

The girl looked at Gary, brushed her hair back behind her ear and sighed. "Why do you care?"

"Nasty habit. My mom smokes. She inhales. She coughs. When she's done coughing she takes another hit, and starts coughing all over again. I'd hate to see you like that."

"Thanks for your concern. Look, is it going to be OK if I smoke out here?"

"Why not smoke inside... oh, your father."

"Yeah, he doesn't know I smoke and would raise seven different kinds of cow if he ever found out."

"So why do you do it?"

"After moving in with my mother things got a little - tense. Her boyfriend, the Outrider, is a bit of a dick. Always on my case about curfews, doing my homework, who I go out to see. He even wants me to call him 'dad' but I told him no way. My dad is very much alive and even if he wasn't I'd still never call him that. Anyway shortly after that I discovered that going out and having a smoke did a lot to calm my nerves."

"I can see why you smoke over there, but why over here?"

Triana took another drag on his cigarette and sighed. "I love my dad. I really do, but sometimes... "

"Gets on your nerves."

"Uh-huh. I want to go into to town and see some of my old friends, go out cruising the mall, and stuff but he's got an itinerary for every second of every day I'm here. We had a big fight over it at supper. So I came out here to cool off."

"I never had a father," Gary said, somewhat uncomfortably.

"Literally, or -"

"Of course I had a father," Gary looked up indignantly. "he just left when I was two or three. I don't remember a thing about him. You honestly thought I didn't have a father?"

"There's a lot of weird stuff in magic. Getting born without a father, or somethings a mother isn't the strangest thing I've learned so far."

"What is the strangest thing you've learned?" Gary asked, the nerd rising to the surface for a moment.

"You don't want to know. I'm sorry I do know. There are things about the Other Realm that would curdle your blood. I know it did mine. I've been rethinking that whole magic thing. I don't think it's the future I want for me."

"Why did you start on it if you don't like it?"

"It's a long story." Triana dug around in the crumpled packet and pulled out half a cigarette. "Damn. You owe me for jumping on me tonight, so the next time you're in town I want you to pick me up some cigarettes, OK?" She tossed the packet at Gary. "Better make it a carton I'm thinking of staying here for a week."

He caught the packet in the air and set it down on the wall they were sitting on. "I jumped on you in the line of duty. What makes you think I owe you any cigarettes for that."

"You said duty."

"Of course I said 'duty' I -" He paused. "Wow! I've changed. I used to be the one who laughed whenever someone said 'duty.' Anyway - I'm head of security now so I have to check out anything suspicious. You shouldn't have been out here smoking. It's really your own damn fault."

"Yeah, right. Say, what happened to that fat guy who was the boys' bodyguard. Had that weird tattoo on his face."

"Sgt. Hatred? He reconciled with his wife, Princess Tinyfeet. You saw her, she as at the prom last month. We don't exactly know where he is anymore. He disappeared later that night, left all his medication behind. He could be on a second honeymoon or he could be planning to resume arching Dr. Venture.

""I left early. Dean was being a dick - again. Sounds like I missed the best part of the party. What else happened?"

"Well, the escorts Doc hired turned out to be assassins from Molotov Cocktease, then they turned into hideous bug-monster. Then Brock returned and - well, I'm surprised the hanger cleaned up as well as it did. There was blood and bug-parts everywhere."

"So why isn't Samson back bodyguarding the boys? I always had the impression that he genuinely liked them. I don't know why. I mean, they are The Venture Brothers..."

"There's a lot of OSI politics involved. Brock's been busy putting out fires. So he sent me to take his place. At least for a while."

"All the more reason for you to pick me up some cigarettes. I saw you driving off in Samson's car tonight. I'm pretty sure Brock never gave you permission to drive it. You get me some cigarettes and I won't tell Brock about it.

"Brock would totally understand," Gary insisted. "I was going out to see a girl."

"You've been here one-two days and you've got a girlfriend?"

"I meet her at the bar night before last. We totally hit it off. It was like love at first sight. - Or at least lust."

"I don't want to hear any more. So you're dating some bimbo from the strip club. What an accomplishment."

"She's not a stripper!"

"Then what was she doing in a strip club?"

"Having a drink - like me. It is the only bar in town," Gary reminded her. "You'd like her. She bright, pretty, witty, loves the same movies, like the Three Stooges, only she's a Moe while I like Curly best. And music. We both like T. Rex and Kraftwerks..."

"I haven't heard anyone mention T. Rex in a long time. I had a friend who was big on T. Rex. I was hoping to see her this weekend but I gather she's not in town. And Kraftwerk. She liked that too, all that electronic music."

"See? She's great. And she likes me, she really likes me."

"And all this after just meeting her - what? - twice." Triana had gotten up to leave. She turned around and looked at Gary, vaguely visible from the lights over the entrance to the building Dr. Orpheus had taken over as his residence. There was a quizzical expression on her face.."Why do you look familiar?"

"I was here when you arrived the other day."

"No. It's like I've seen you before that. Only you were different."

"I have been working out."

"Wait a minute, now I know you, you were one of Monarch's henchmen. You were always running around the place hiding whenever the Monarch tried to kill Dr, Venture. You had a partner, tall guy with a deep voice. What are you doing acting like Dr. Venture's bodyguard?"

She backed away and reached for a whistle hung around her neck. Gary leaped up and caught her hand. "It's OK. I've changed. You don't need to blew that whistle. I don't work for the Monarch anymore. I work for Brock Samson. totally!"

"When did all this happen?" Triana asked warily.

"At the prom. I found out that. The Monarch had been using me in some twisted game with his wife so I quit. I'd had enough of him messing with me. So I left and joined the OSI. They sent me here because they thought I could relate to the boys better."

"No one could relate to the boys..." Triana groused.

"But I am legit. I even have a tape from Brock explaining this. It's in my room if you want to come listen to it?"

"I'll ... stay here." She sat down with a long sigh. "Stuff just gets more messed up all the time. Good guys turn evil, evil guys turn good. Nothing stays the same."

"Would you want it to?" Gary asked, a question he'd often wondered himself.

Triana actually thought about it. "Change is good. I guess I just wish it didn't happen so often around here." She felt in her pocket for another cigarette, remembered she was out and stood up. "Since I don't have anything to smoke I may as well go back inside."

Gary stood up, a habit his mother had drilled into him about what to do when a lady was leaving. He must have looked expectant because Triana added, "I - don't do hugs. But it was nice meeting you Gary. It was nice having someone to talk to who wasn't my dad or - The Venture Brothers."

"I'll try not to jump on you again," Gary offered.

"Yeah, that would be good." With a smile and a wave of her fingers Triana left. Gary finished a circuit of the compound and called it a night as well.


	3. Chapter 3

"Triana," the voice came over the telephone. "I'm taking the boys out hiking today in the State park. I wondered if you wanted to come along?"

"Spend a day with...the Venture Brothers?" Triana's disgust sounded clearly over the connection.

"Yeah. But I thought you might like to get out of the house. And, no," Gary quickly added, "Dean did not put me up to this."

"Did you get," Triana paused to look around to see if her father was anywhere's close, "that thing I asked for?"

"Yeah, one carton of Virginia Slim. But you can't smoke in the State Park. I don't want to be responsible for starting a forest fire."

"As long as I can have a smoke before we get started. Yeah, I'll go."

"You gonna smoke in front of the boys? They're the worst tattletales in the world," Gary reminded her.

"God forbid I upset their delicate sensibilities." Triana sighed. "I'll bring a backpack and some time during the day you can slip the cigarettes into it."

An hour later they were cruising through the main gate of the Venture compound in the X-13, as Gary decided to christen the ancient atomic powered car. Triana lolled in the front seat, fingers twitching for a smoke. It made her feel like a junkie. Dean had wanted to sit up front with her but Gary had insisted that the two boys sit in back. Then they had wanted Triana to sit in back with them. Gary had whispered, "if you love your DNA don't sit back there."

Triana looked at the back seat, then at the small tower under the triple axles with the 'nuclear' logo on it. "Should you let the boys sit back there?"

"I don't think their DNA can be screwed up any more than it is."

It was a short drive to the State Park except that Gary took numerous meanders and detours, getting the feel for the landscape while not appearing to. The atomic car climbed the hills with ease despite its enormous weight. It could reach surprisingly high speeds, once it got rolling. Gary wondered how many horse it had under the hood but guessed that like it's mileage, power was irrelevant. In any case everyone they passed had stared in astonishment at the big pink car with the sail-like fins and bubble roof. And wasn't the whole point of cruising to get other people to notice you? Even before they got to the State Park Gary felt they had accomplished everything they had set out to do.

At the park Gary picked up a map of the area and drove around to the Nature Center where all the hiking trails started. He parked aslant three spaces since the car was too big to fit in a normal slot.

They piled out of the car and headed towards the trail head. Hank had dressed up like a TV big game hunter, in short khaki pants, a multi-pocketed shirt and a over-sized pith helmet. He was even practicing saying "Crikey" with an Australian accent. Dean was wearing his brown suit since he was under the impression that he was on a date with Triana. He kept trying to start a conversation with her. Triana had found a pair of old jeans and a pull-over sweater. Her penny loafers looked as impractical as Dean's Oxfords but Gary wasn't going to mention that.

They had been hiking for about an hour when they came to a small glade, maybe forty yards wide and a hundred yards or more long. A stream ran through it about twenty feet across and from the look of it several feet deep. Tall trees to the east offered a bit of shade against the bright warm sun. A few large rocks offered places to sit. Gary announced they'd take a short break here. Hank, who had been mopping his brow for a while took one look at the stream and suggested they go skinnydipping.

"Oh Boy!" Dean exclaimed, "Last one in is a rotten egg!" The two two boys started tearing at their clothes. "Come on, Triana," Dean called when he noticed that the girl hadn't moved.

"No way am I taking my clothes off in front of you two," she announced, and then, seeing Dean reach for the zipper on his pants, turned away with a blush.

Gary shook his head as he watched the boys undress. "I wouldn't do that," he told them. They weren't listening to him. As Hank pulled off his last sock and raced for the river bank Gary told Triana, "You really got to see this. It'll be fun."

"The last thing I want to see is Dean's...worm." Triana replied.

"Do you know where mountain streams get their water? Glaciers. Ice cold glaciers."

Gary had barely finished when there was a splash followed almost immediately by a loud scream. Despite herself Triana turned around, just in time to see Dean streak past her, hands on his privates, panic in his eyes.

"The exercise will do him good," Gary commented. "Warm him up."

Hank remained in the water. "Hey, Gary," he called, "what are you waiting for? The water is f-f-f-f-fine." His lips were turning blue and this teeth were chattering by the time he finished.

Gary walked over to the edge of the stream. "Hank, you've got two minutes to get out of there or hypothermia is going to kill you."

"No, it's great, not c-c-c-cold at all?"

"Don't make me come in and get you, 'cause I won't like it. The water's freezing. I'm willing to let you turn into a Hanksicle but I don't want to have to explain it to your dad."

"D-d-d-d-arn" Hank said before wading out of the stream. He was shivering violently by the time he got to his clothes and started pulling them on.

"I'd better go find Dean," Gary said.

"Don't leave me with him," Triana said and followed after.

They found Dean about a quarter-mile away. He had run, straight as an arrow, down the trail they'd just come up before running head-on into a tree. The path had detoured around the tree. Dean hadn't. Even unconscious he hadn't let go of the family jewels.

"Is he..." Triana asked.

"Dead? Sorry, no. He'll live. He should be able to continue to pee standing up."

"Thanks for putting that image in my head. He must have hit that tree pretty hard."

Gary peeled each of Deans eyes open one at a time. "The pupils looks the same so probably no concussion," Gary explained. He picked the boy up and throw him over his shoulder and lead the way back to the stream. Back when he was a henchman, before 24 died he wouldn't have been able to pick up Dean, or even half of Dean. He probably couldn't have run half as far as Dean did either. The relentless exercise he began after 24's death had replaced much that had been fat with muscles. He didn't look that much different from before. But at moments like this it was obvious that Gary was a lot different from Henchman 21.

Hank was dressed when they got back, sitting on the grounding leaning against one of the sunnier large rocks. he was shivering in his damp clothes and looked miserable.

"Hank, get Dean's cloths. We got to get this idiot dressed." Gary told him.

"Can me make a fire?"

"No. It's too dry up for fires. Just keep moving and you'll warm up quick enough."

It was necessary for Gary to pry Dean's hands off his crotch so they could pull his underpants up. That seemed to bring him out of his daze and he was able to help get the rest of his clothes one. As soon as he shoes were tied Gary set off again along the trail to the top of the ridge. He had intended to stop in the glade for lunch but the boys needed the exercise to warm up after their ice bath so he pushed on further up the trail.

He lead the way for a while, until he noticed that Triana was lagging farther and farther back. He stopped, sent Hank and Dean on ahead and waited for the girl to catch up. He fell in beside her, matching his steps to her short, slower pace.

"You OK?" he asked.

"I can't believe those boys are more athletic than I am." she panted.

"They spend a lot of time running away from things."

"Why aren't you leading the way? Aren't you afraid they might do something stupid?"

"No Troop left Behind!"

"And I'm the Behind."

Gary tried to do a Grouco Marx impersonation. "It's a very nice behind, but I'm seeing someone else."

"Are you flirting with me?" Triana looked at him shocked.

"I am seeing someone else. Don't drop me straight lines unless you mean it."

"I'm sorry if I'm slowing you guys down."

"Hey, we have no where in particular to go and all day to do it. As soon as the boys warm up some we'll break for lunch."

They walked for a little bit in silence. Gary was enjoying the cool, crisp air, the faint smell of pine, the smooth, almost mechanical movement of arms and legs. At moments like this it felt good to be alive. Then he felt guilty because he was alive and 24 wasn't.

"I got a question," he began, the words sort of blurting out before he had decided whether to ask her or not. "You're studying magic right."

Triana nodded.

"I have a friend. He died last year."

"I'm so sorry."

"Well, I - uh -?"

"I can't bring him back. Necromancy is very high magic. I'm not sure Dad can but you really should ask him."

"I'm afraid to talk to your father."

"Tell me about it."

"But - uh -" Gary fumbled for the words. "That's not it. I already asked Dr. Venture if he would clone him, and the bastard wasted a half million dollar comic book and did nothing."

"There are comic books worth a half million dollars?" Triana seemed genuinely surprised.

"A first issue Marvel Tales in mint condition, yes. But that's not my question. I still see my friend. He hangs around, talks to me. But he's dead. So am I seeing a ghost or having a psychotic episode."

Triana looked at him for a moment. "You really liked your friend?"

"We were like brothers, maybe better than brothers."

"But not in a gay way." 24 was suddenly walking on the other side of Triana. He was scowling at Gary.

"But not in a gay way," Gary repeated what his invisible friend had just said.

"Soulmates?"

"That's a girly way of putting it." Gary sneered. "But - I guess."

"Ok, here's the problem." Triana began. "Spirits do exist but they only appear to certain people. So it's really hard to say whether you're being visited by a ghost or not."

24 rolled his eyes."Of course I'm real." 24 insisted.

"Do you remember that old movie, _Harvey_, about the invisible magical rabbit?"

"With Jimmy Stewart. Yeah, it's great."

"Well, your situation is much like that. No body can prove that Harvey exists, things happen that suggest Harvey exists and in the end its up to the viewers to decide if they believe in the rabbit."

"Do I look like a rabbit?" 24 wanted to know. He flapped his henchnab wings menacingly, but that could have been a momentary breeze coming off the mountain top.

"So - you can't tell me whether I'm being haunted by the ghost of my friend?"

"If it bothers you I'm sure Dad can arrange an exorcism for you, but - does it bother you to have your friend around?"

"Only when I'm ma - in the bathroom."

Triana looked at him oddly, like she'd heard what he'd tried not to say.

"You know," she continued, "you will only see your friend when you want to."

"But you can't tell if he's here? Say if he were walking beside you just now?"

Triana looked to her other side, her face passing through 24's extended Monarch wings as if they didn't exist. "He's here, isn't he. Your friend?"

"Yeah."

"And yet I don't feel, or see or sense a thing."

"Dude, you are so making time with her," 24 said "You should, totally, ask her out on a date."

"I've got a girlfriend," Gary complained.

"What?" Triana asked.

"Did I say that out loud? Sorry. 24 is telling me to - well, never mind. He's just messing with my head."

"Exorcism. I'm sure my Dad would give you a cut rate on the ceremony."

"Hey Gary, Triana! You've got to see this!" Hank was calling from the ridge top up ahead. He waved frantically from them to hurry up.

The trail leveled off at a stretch where the side of the mountain must have once collapsed. Above, the mountain side reared in a steep, rocky incline of sixty or seventy degrees. Below, the mountain opened up into a shallower decline of large rocks and boulders, some the size of a house. But all covered now by moss with grass growing between the boulders and the occasional bush struggling to find a foothold in the landscape. Trees grew up the slope on either side of this fall in tall dark ranks but for a hundred yards or so the mountainside was bald.

They stood and looked out over the horizon at the long valley below them. To one side they could make out the nature Center where they had started from.

"Hey Gary," Hank called "There's our car!" The X-13 was indeed visible as much for its size as it's bright color.

Gary was more interested in the turkey buzzard circling more or less at their level, a quarter of a mile away. What a huge and majestic bird, soaring effortlessly in the sky. And yet a little further up the trail they would be looking down on the bird, having climbed high into the heavens. It was what you might call a "Kodak Movement" if only Kodak hadn't gone out of business. Oh, wait, that was Polaroid that went out of business. Kodak was still making camera. Film, too, just not as much."

"Look Out!" Dean screamed and hurled himself at Triana, dragging her off and below the trail and some feet back. Hank and Gary leaped aside as several large boulders came hurtling down the mountainside and bounced over the trail and down into the valley below. A hail of smaller rocks and stones followed. Dean crawled on top of Triana to shield her body with his. Another large boulders came lumbering down the slope, kicking up more rubble as it went. Hank had to scramble to get out of its way. As a third boulder started rolled down Gary waved the others back the way they came, and into the shelter of the trees there.

Hank took to his heels like a quarterback making an end run, hoping over falling rocks and dodging sheets of gravel. Gary made sure that Dean and Triana were on their feet and running before following.

He got to the sheltering trees in time to hear Triana tell Dean "You can let go of my hand, now. And the next time you save my life try not coping a feel while your at it!"

"I did not such thing!" Dean insisted, his face growing red.

"Oh, come on, dude," Hank snorted. "We all could see it. You had her boob in, like, a Vulcan Death Grip!"

"There's no such thing as a Vulcan Death Grip," Dean replied, guiltily hiding his hand behind his back.

"There is too!"

"Guy, guys,"Gary broke in. "You're thinking of the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. That done with the thumb and first finger and to the person's shoulder. But Dean, what would Brock Samson say in a situation like this?"

"To never admit to anything?" Dean answered hesitantly.

Gary was stumped for a moment because that was something Brock would say. "No, he'd say to man up and admit what you did. So, now, did you grab Triana's breasts?"

"Yes." He almost whispered he spoke so low, and was digging his shoe into the dirt as he said so. "But I didn't mean to. I mean at first. I was just trying to get her out of the way of the avalance and when we landed I realized I was touching her - her - bosom - and it felt so nice and - I'm sorry. I just didn't want to let go."

"Dean - I can't believe you groped me!" Triana fumed.

"He was trying to save your life." Gary observed.

"Can I save Triana next? I want to feel her -" Hank looked hopeful.

"No!" Gary and Triana said in unison.

"Jinks - Double jinks!" Dean said with a laugh.

"Guys! Guys! Focus! I'm going up there to see what started those rocks rolling. Dean, the next time you save Triana's life remember to respect her dignify and no groping or she'll have my permission to kick you in the nuts. Hank! The same goes for you. While I'm gone I want you three to stay here and stay together. Be on the lookout for any and everything.

"You think someone tried to roll those rocks on top of us." Hank seemed incredulous.

"You're the Venture Brothers, what do you think?"

Gary took off up the steep slope through the trees. It was tough going. The ground was covered in half-rotted leaves and loosely held dirt. Trying to be silence and swift at the same time was a challenge. It was only fifteen minutes later before he was at the top of the ancient rockslide. No one was in sight. Gary made his way out to where it looked like the rock slides had started. It was easy enough to see where the rocks had been. The ground was still damp where they had rested. Studying the ground closely, he couldn't be sure but it looked like someone in high heels have been moving from rock to rock. It must be the sniper from the day before, he decided. Gary tried sniffing the air for any hint of perfume but could only pick up the forest around him.

But how did the sniper find them at the park and get ahead of them? He pulled out the map at the park and checked on the trails. Sure enough the descending half of the trail they were on was steep but short and ended at the Nature Center. Someone could have followed them to the park, seen what trail they were on and circled around and got here first. They'd have to be in really great shape, though. This had to be a professional hit, then. That would ft with the high heels. A Blackheart operation. But why so clumsy and inefficient? A sniper seated up here could have taken them all out in three shots and been gone before the first round stopped echoing on the hills. Of course killing them with a rock slide would have made it look natural. But why would the Blackhearts go to that kind of trouble? It didn't add it and Gary didn't like that.

Going down was actually worse than going up. It was harder to keep one's balance, hard to keep each step down from turning into a somersault. But Gary got down, told the others their assailant had left, and lead them across the open rock face and into the forest beyond. In a short while they reached the mountain peak where picnic tables offered them a sorely needed rest. Gary set down his backpack and took out bottles of water and sandwiches for everyone. Triana casually dropped her backpack next to Gary's. While the boys were intent on their sandwiches Gary slide a carton of cigarettes from his backpack into Triana's. He wanted to hit her up for the money, since they had cost a fortune. States everywhere were trying to tax cigarettes out of existence, but he figured she'd pitch a bitch about that. The next carton - and he figured if she stayed over for very long there would be another carton - she would pay double for it.

After they had eaten the boys started to play. Hank had brought along a hackysack and they were kicking that around. Triana had remained seated with Gary. After watching the boys play for a while he turned to Triana and asked, "You've known the boys longer than I have what makes them act the way thy do?"

"How should I know," she answered petulantly. "I'm not a psychologist."

"But it's weird. I'll be talking to them one minute and they'll something pretty smart - Hey, Dean! What's that?" Gary pointed to a nearby oak tree.

"That's an example of a tree in the genus Quercus. The genus is native to the northern hemisphere, extending from the poles to the tropics. Oak trees are flowering plants. The genus is divided into two subgenera, Quercus, such as the white oak and Cyclobalanopsis, the latter native to Asia. Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, that divide into lobes. Some oak keaves are smooth edged while others are serrated.

Oak is a dense wood with great strength and hardness, and is very resistant to insect and fungal attack because of its high tannin content. Oak wood, from Quercus robur and Quercus petraea, was used in Europe for the construction of ships, especially naval men of war, oak is still commonly used for furniture making and flooring, timber frame buildings, and for veneer production."

"But what does that mean?" Gary asked.

Dean looked at him blankly. "What does what mean?" he asked.

"Yes," Gary said. "One minute he's like a walking encyclopedia and the next he's a black slate."

"Maybe it's their teaching beds?"

"Teaching Beds?"

"Yeah," Triiana explained. "They sleep in these weird beds that teach them stuff every night. That what they told me, anyway. Maybe this stuff their supposed to be learning just hangs around in their heads like indigestible wax or something."

"And whenever someone asked them a question they barf up the answer but don't understand it because they haven't actually learned it." Gary finished her thought. "That would explain a lot but why do they act like they were just born yesterday when they're like 17 years old. You'd think they'd have learned a lot of practical stuff by now anyway."

Triana shrugged her shoulders. "Well, their father never lets them out of the house..."

Gary nodded at that.

"It looks like they're having more fun than I am, so I you'll excuse me..." she got up and joined the two brothers. She was laughing and shouting with excitement even though she wasn't really good at the game. After a while when she'd dropped the sack once again she just stooped down, grabbed it and tossed it over Dean's head to Hank. At which point the game became Keep-away.

Gary watched with benevolent amusement. How young they seemed, how child-like. They made him feel like an old man, even though he was barely ten years older than they were. He thought for a while about their unseen sniper. But that proved futile so he thought about Kim instead. They had been together for what, like four hours and most of that time had been spent screwing but, God, he liked her. Was she the one, he wondered? Did they have a future? She could be a bit bossy and shrewish - just like his mother. He didn't see that as a problem, it was something he was used to. Of course one reason he quit the Monarch was because he was bossy and shrewish.

He wondered, as he often did, whether there could have been a future for him and Dr. Girlfriend - Sheila. Like real people, she did have a name. Once he would have crawled over broken glass for her. Walked on fire, swum lagoon filled with sharks. Except that he would never have done any of those things. That was crazy. And while he was crazy in love with her, he wasn't suicidal, either.

Of course arching someone took quite a bit of money. The Monarch had his trust fund, of course. Gary did not. That would have made graduating from Henchman to Super-Villain rather difficult. Also who would have he have Arched? Villains have to arch somebody and frankly there wasn't anybody he really hated. Not the way The Monarch hated Dr. Venture. In all the years he'd worked for The Monarch he had never learned why that was. The Monarch once said that Venture had laughed at his poems but that hardly seemed like reason enough. Especially since the poems, which he had found in a doubly-encrypted file, were pretty laughable.

Thinking about it, Gary realized that the only person he felt at all intensely about was The Monarch and villains weren't allowed to Arch other villains. Of course as one of the good guys he could go after the Monarch, but that wouldn't technically be Arching. That would be a Police Action. And it seemed pretty unlikely that Mrs. Dr. The Monarch would agree to Arch her own husband. Though that would be pretty evil.

Gary brought his mind back to Kim. God, she was beautiful, and not just because she slept with him. She was witty, smart, liked the things he liked, well, some of them, and most of all didn't think he was a gross and disgusting pig. Of course he hadn't talked about his collection of Star Wars memorabilia or his love of Dungeons and Dragons. He had learned to hold his tongue while reshaping himself into the perfect Henchman. Time enough to mention those things later.

What did he know about her? That she was busy, had a boss that was tough and didn't appreciate her. That she had to sneak out to see him. What he really wanted to do, Gary realized, was to find some way to spend time with Kim that didn't involve the back seat of Brock's car. The idea of taking her out for dinner, a real meal and not a quick burger after hot sex. Or maybe a movie. Half-Life II was coming out soon. That sounded like a good flick. Then they'd have time to talk, to really get to know each other. Then later, if they still liked each other they could have the hot crazy sex.

Yeah, that sounded like a plan. Gary was all set for calling her up but it was still early in the day. She'd said not to call before six. He'd have to wait. As a henchman all he ever did was wait (or hide) and that had been just great. Now waiting sucked.

Oddly enough, at that moment Kim Duquesne was not thinking about Gary. She was too intent on sneaking back into the old abandoned convent that had been converted into the headquarters of United Conflict Resolution Systems. The former Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows convent was surrounded with an eight foot high brick wall. Easy enough for her to climb over after all the training she had got. A short run, a quick leap and the top of the wall was in her hands. She had removed the pieces of broken glass embedded in the cement covering the top in just this one location.

She pulled herself up and flipped over with almost weightless ease. She looked across the narrow patio to a spy cam mounted on the wall of one of the buildings. The camera panned back and forth covering all the wall in this area, but she had jammed a small stick in one end of the guide track preventing the camera from making a full pan, opening up a four foot span of unmonitored wall.

The camera was mounted twelve feet off the ground. Kim took a short run, planted her feet on the wall and pushed herself up in a running leap. A couple more quick steps up the side of the wall and she grasped the bracket holding the camera. Holding on with one hand she removed the stick and dropped back to the ground. While it was unlikely that the Blackhearts assigned to monitor the cameras would ever notice the limited pan of one of the units, it was best to not leave it obstructed - just in case.

Once over the fence it was easy to walk across the grounds to her unit and slip in the door. No one was watching. The mop and bucket of water she'd prepared before she left were where she'd hide them, in the janitorial closet. She got them out and quickly splashed water all over the dorm's floor she was busy mopping it up when Molotov Cocktease stuck he head inside the doorway.

"Darlink, you do such good work. Dis floor iz spotless!"

"Thank you, Ma'am." Kim replied. It's always good to butter up the boss.

"And you have givin' up idea of assassinating Venture Brothers."

"I've learned the errors of my ways, ma'am"

"See that you have," Molotov warned. She left.

Kim finished mopping the floor. All Blackhearts had household duties like this, which they did from 2 PM to 4. Though the convent was no longer a religious order Cocktease ran it on a same tight schedule just like the old nuns did.

When the floor was done Kim showered and changed her clothes. The last evidence of her outing to kill Hank Venture was buried in a hamper of dirty linens.

She had lingered in the shower while thinking about the new bodyguard the Venture's had. As luck would have it the two times she's seen him he had been turned away so all we really know about him was that he had a really nice ass. He must be pretty good, Kim concluded, because he'd spotted her sniper scope from a quarter-mile away. But then it proved harder to kill Hank Venture than she had expected. The rockslide ought to have got him today but the other one, Dean Venture, was fidgeting around so much and seen the rocks coming. Kim only intended to kill Hank. Dean had been Triana's date, back then. Let her deal with him if she wants. But now it looked as if to kill one Venture Brother she was going to have to kill both. Oh well. So be it.

She hoped Gary would call tonight. She was feeling real frustrated about not being able to kill Hank Venture, she needed something to take her frustrations out on and Gary was good for that. He was kind of a dope but hard muscled and she liked that. And in the sack... He didn't know a lot of fancy moves but he sure knew how to put a smile on a girl's face. And doing it in the back seat of a car - that was real nasty. She liked nasty.

Someone opened the barracks door and let it close with a bang, bringing Kim to her senses. She turned off the water and was toweling herself dry when Adrienne, a petite blonde from her group can in and dropped a towel on a bench next to an adjacent stall. Kim waved hello as the girl stepped into her shower and left to dress, but her mind was the upcoming tryst that night.


	4. Chapter 4

The next few days were uneventful Triana stayed indoors so there weren't any awkward meetings with Dean. Dr. Venture had pleaded with him to try out some new flying skates but Gary refused, recalled one of Brock's many warning. "Never let the Doc experiment on you!"

Every night he would call Kim's number. Some nights she would answer and they would go out somewhere and have hot monkey sex. Other times someone else would answer and Gary would hang-up without speaking. Once a an older woman with a deep, Russian accent answered, "Do not call this number again," she said and hung up. That was a little disturbing because it suggested that Kim was under observation by someone. Who could it be he wondered. and why Kim, who seemed to be rather an ordinary girl.

Mornings were still too bright and too early by his standards but Gary was getting better used to the rigorous, very Brockian, schedule he'd set himself. He'd done his exercises, run the perimeter of the Venture Compound checking on the defenses and now was in the Venture's kitchen eating some breakfast He was considering a second bowl of cereal when he heard the faint padding of bare feet. Gary turned to see Triana walking in, dressed in an over-sized T-shirt and apparently not much else. Her hair was mussed up and her face, without its usual make-up looked a lot younger than he expected.

She walked past without noticing him and, with the sort of easy that comes from long experience, open a cabinet and took out a cereal bowl. From a drawer she extracted a spoon and laid it on the counter next to the bowl. She walked across the kitchen to a cabinet near the refrigerator. "Hey, who ate the last of the Cookie Crisp?" she asked herself.

Gary looked down at the last morsels swimming in the bottom of his bowl and felt a little guilty, except that this wasn't her kitchen.

She rummaged among boxes Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Special K and Fruit Loops, before taking the Fruit Loops. She opened the fridge and removed a banana and the bottle of milk, taking them back to the bowl. Triana filled the bowl with cereal, sliced banana on top then poured milk all over it. She put the milk and cereal away, not really looking, her eyes half closed with sleep, picked up the cereal bowl and stopped with a jolt as she turned to the table and latest noticed Gary.

"What are you doing here?" She asked with a gasp. The bowl sloshed in her hand, spilling a little milk on the floor. "You scared the shit out of me."

"Eating the last of your cookie crisps, apparently." Gary said. "You're kind of far from your dad's apartment and underdressed to be visiting. Or were you having a sleep-over with someone?" Gary keep a level inflection throughout to make it sound less like a accusation.

"What? No. God, no! How could you say something like that?"

"You look like you just - crawled out of bed, someone's bed."

"Well, I'm not sleeping with Dean, as if that were any concern of yours."

"I don't care who you're sleeping with but as head of Venture Security anyone wandering around the Venture Residence late at night is my concern."

"I'm not sleeping with anyone!" Triana was outraged. "Besides Dean shares his room with his brother. Even if I were thinking of it, I wouldn't do it in front of an audience."

"That would be kind of creepy," Gary agreed. "So is two boys continuing to share the same room at their age. If I were their age I would have moved into my mother's basement so I wouldn't have to share a room.." A thought came to Gary. "You're not - uh - doing it with Dr. Venture?"

"Eeeww! He's old enough to be my father and he's crazy. Dean at least means well. Look," she pointed a spoonful of cereal in Gary's direction, "I'm only here because I had a fight with my dad last night. Knowing him, he'll just pick up it up this morning. So I came over here..."

"I smelled Apology Pancakes as I was coming in."

"I don't care if it's the Fatted Calf, it wouldn't have ended well. Dad just can't let it go."

"You're going to have to see him eventually - unless you plan to let Dean see you in that - uh - nightie."

Triana automatically crossed her arms over her chest, then after a moment sigh and went back to eating.

The silence dragged on. Finally, without looking up from her now empty bowl, Triana said,"Aren't you going to ask what we were fighting about?" 

"I am curious. Did you know that silence is a powerful tool in interrogation? People don't like dead air. Wait patiently long enough and they'll start talking of their own accord."

"Is there, like a book, "Henchmen for Dummies?"

"No, but maybe I ought to write one. And you could write one about 'How to live with a Necromancer.'

Triana laughed. Her laughter kind of built up until she seemed on the verge of crying. She stopped with a sob and, still not looking up said, "I told Dad I didn't think I wanted to continue studying magic."

"How come?"

"The more I learn about magic that less I want to know. It's like that phrase, 'some things Man was not meant to know'? That pretty much sums up magic. Besides, I think I was stampeded into it."

"By your Dad?"

"No, by his mentor, The master. More like the Prince of Lies."

"Your father is mentored by Sa..."

"Don't say!" Triana said sharply. "It's hard to explain but just don't say that name. The Master' is good enough."

"Like we're not supposed to say 'Voldemort'?"

"It's complicated. Any," she hurried on, "when we moved here Dad opened a gateway to the other realm so he could visit his Master. Only, for obscure reasons, he had to put it in my closet. He never _told_ me about it. And he never did anything sensible like take that room for _his_ bedroom. He just put in the gateway and let me use the room. For years I was afraid to enter my own closet."

"Was that why you wore the same clothes all the time."

"Partly. - I guess Dad figured that since only a magic-user see the gate that it would be OK, little thinking that I might be a magic-user. I don't know why it never occurred to him. Mom's a magic-user and he's a magic-user. Two recessive genes always gets expressed.

"Anyway, one day I accidentally wander into the Other Realm and meet The Master, only he's made himself up to look like a middle-aged Dean Venture - potbelly, bald spot and even more prissy than he is now, claiming to be my husband. This, the master says, is my future - marriage to Dean Venture - if I don't do something about it now. And since I was obviously a magic-user I should begin studying magic with my mother.

"It all seemed to make sense at the time but lately I got to thinking that - marriage to Dean was never in the cards. I like Dean. He's a nice guy. But I like him as a friend, and only as a friend. I can't imagine who would ever think Dean and I were made for each other..."

"Outside of Dr. Orpheus, Dr. Venture and Dean," Gary suggested.

"To hell with them. Anyway. The point was that the future The Master was warning me about was one that was never going to happen."

"Fate can be very tricky, Gary observed.

"Yeah." Triana got up and took her bowl to the sink, rinsed it out and set in the strainer to dry. "The more I studied magic the more I realized how much it has messed up Dad and to an extent, Mom. I don't want to be like either one of them. I just want to be like a normal person."

"So, what - Community College?" Gary asked.

"As if! I don't think Dad has the money. In any case I don't know what I want to major in. I was thinking of getting a job at Target or maybe some record store for a year or two while I figure out what I want to do. I kind of like the idea of record promotion but I don't know."

"You're kind of like Dean. His father wants him to go into the Super-Science game like him but Dean doesn't want to."

"That's a scary thought. I think I know more about science than Dean does."

"He wants to be a writer, a journalist. His "Venture Home News" is kind of a fun read. Maybe he's got something there."

"He ought to write a tell-all book about his dad. That's where the money is. You want a cup of coffee?" Triana asked.

"Couldn't find the coffee-maker."

"It's that over there."

"Why does it have an oscilloscope on its front?" Gary wondered.

"Apparently once the sine wave stabilizes it's ready to produce the perfect cup of coffee."

"Show me how to use it." The machine was a lot more complicated that any coffee machine had any right to be, but drawing from a hopper of coffee beans it produced an amazingly tasty couple of coffee. Just breathing in the aroma made Gary jittery. Or maybe it was standing so close to Triana and being acutely conscious that there wasn't much under the T-shirt she was wearing.

"I'm guessing you have maybe five minutes to get out of here before Dr. Venture follows the smell of coffee down here," Gary advised.

"Any advice from your life as a henchman on how to deal with an angry dad?"

" 'Always watch your back'?"

Triana drained the rest of her cup. "Well, wish me luck." She put the cup in the sink and left the way she came. four minutes and thirty-eight seconds later Dr. Venture wandered into the kitchen wearing tiny zebra-print briefs. "Two milks, two sugars," he ordered. "And I like my eggs sunny-side up."

I didn't sign up to be a short-order cook, Gary thought as he opened the fridge. He was going to have to read over his contract again to see exactly what he duties were.

Gary was out in the back field later that morning, rewiring surveillance camera when Hank and Dean wandered by. Hank was wearing a trench coat despite the summer like weather, and a brown fedora. A whip was tied to his belt. Gary hoped that he wouldn't offer to demonstrate his skill with the whip. Dean was wearing his brown pants and vest, with a striped shirt and an elastic cuff on one arm holding back his shirt cuff. On his head was a green celluloid visor, the kind book keepers were wont to wear, say, back in the twenties. In his hand was a steno pad and a pencil.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions for the Venture Home News." Dean explained.

"No comment."

"But I haven't asked any questions."

"Doesn't matter, my answer will all be the same: 'no comment'."

"Can I quote you on that?" Dean asked.

"No."

"Ah, come on, Gary, you gotta answer some questions! How can I run an interview with Venture Co's new head of security if you won't answer any questions?"

Gary shrugged. He was on a step ladder that leaned against a tree. At a level with his head was a small camera. A short length of wire descended from it. Nailed to the tree was the rest of the cable. Gary had already stripped the insulation from the wires inside the two sections of cable. Now he snipped a four inch length of coax wire from a small spool then stripped each end, then stripped the insulation from each of the exposed wires. Careful to match the red, black, white and green wires to their mates he first twisted the short length to the cable nailed to the tree, wrapping each one in electrical tape as he finished.

"Whatcha doin'?" Hank asked.

"Fixing the security camera. Someone cut the cable leading up to the command center." Gary started attaching the wire from the splice to the lead coming from the camera.

"Was it me?" Hank asked.

"Nah, it was probably me. See those broken branches up there?" Gary pointed high up in the tree where it looked like a large weight had come smashing down. "I recall one time jumping - well, being thrown - out of the Monarchmobile into a tree. The idea was to cut the wire to the camera so the rest of the assault squad could climb over the fence undetected. My wings were supposed to brake my fall, but no one thought to tell me that they worked. So I kind of crashed. And by the time I finished thrashing through the tree, found the camera and cut it, Brock already knew we were here. That's when I met 24. He and I were among the few survivors. Spent a week together in the trauma ward."

"Can I quote you on that?" Dean asked.

"Dean, do you really want to give all your enemies ideas on how to get into this compound?" Gary asked.

"But I need something big, something to lead the new issue." Dean was petulant.

"Don't you have anything else?"

Hank had become bored and was practising with his whip. So far he had avoided slicing his head off, or Dean's or Gary's. Still, at any minute Gary feared he would try to wrap the tip around a branch and swing off somewhere. Not that: A) it was easy wrapping a whip around a tree branch and B) afterwards they don't come loose, He knew. He'd tried. Damn never broke his neck. Which was the sort of think he was supposed to prevent the Venture Brothers from doing.

Dean was thumbing through his steno pad. With a sigh he said, "The only other thing I've got is that Dad's play was rejected by another agent. That makes 8 for 8."

"You'd think he'd get the hint," Hank said from the ground where he'd fallen after getting tangled up in the whip.

"He hasn't favored me with a copy of it yet," Gary said as he whipped a final layer of tape around the splice. With the two-way he dialed into the web cam in the Guard Shack and saw that the monitor for this camera was now receiving a picture. And this time it was right side up. Once before he had crossed wires and the picture had come in upside down. He had had to tear it all apart and do it again.

"It's no favor." Hank continued. "Why he makes out granddad to be some kind of monster. No way is that true!"

"Word around the Cocoon was that Jonas Venture, Senior was a bit of a monster. It's all well and good to want to be a Boy Adventurer like Rusty, but what kind of a father drags his kid around the world into all sorts of danger. I thought fathers were supposed to protect their children, not get them killed."

"Was your father like that?" Dean asked.

"I didn't have a father," Gary answered before remember he wasn't going to tell Dean anything.

"Were you a Virgin Birth, like Zohepshut?"

"Or Jesus?"

"Neither. My dad run away when I was two, that's all."

"Is that what lead to your life of crime?"

"Life of crime? I was a henchman for the Monarch! We hardly ever did anything."

"Can I quote you on that?" Dean asked.

"Dean, my life was boring, OK? My dad ran away when I was two, maybe theee. Mom worked in a department store and had a succession of creepy boyfriends.

"I joined the Monarch when I got out of school just to get away from all that."

"I thought you had to be, like, eighteen to join the Guild of Calamitius Intent."

"They're super-villains. What part of 'obeying the law' do a super-villain follow?' Gary rolled his eyes. "They are a little more particular about sixteen year olds and younger - because of child labor laws and protective services. The Guild tries to avoid entanglements with local governments." He paused and considered. "Ok, the Monarch did kidnap me when I was fifteen. I was on a school trip to Washington, DC at the time. But he had to let me go because of my age. Called it an unpaid summer internship as I recall. So I kind of already kmew about the Guild and all that. - But my life was still boring!"

"What did you do while you were with the Monarch - besides kissing Dr. Girlfriend?" Dean persisted. He'd been scribbling notes while Gary talked. From what Gary could see as Dean flipped pages it looked like shorthand. When did he ever learn that he wondered. Teaching Beds. God knows what all they taught the boys.

"That part of my live if behind me. I don't want to talk about it." Gary was getting angry.

"Did she slip you the tongue?"

"Dean have you ever even kissed a girl? What do you know about kissing?"

Hank said. "I had sex with a girl - I think - but I don't know who?"

"Trust you to forget the important detail," Gary said. Turning to Dean he demanded, "Give me that," and took the steno pad out of his hand.

"Kissing Dr. Girlfriend was the most amazing thing I've ever done. It took a lot of nerve to do it. And I certainly thought she was kissing back - but it meant nothing to her. It was all part of some game she and Monarch were playing to see how crazy they could make me. So now she'd dead to me. Do you hear me - dead! And if you ever print a word of this I - Will - Kill - You!"

"But you're our bodyguard!" Dean protested.

"Not a word or..." Gary drew a finger across his throat. He threw the steno pad back at Dean.

Gary turned back to the ladder, pulled it down. Carrying it in one hand and grabbing a tote with supplies with the other, Gary started off for the next camera on his list. Dean seemed on the verge of tears. He felt guilty about that. He wanted to make up for that, then remembered something Triana had said that morning.

"Hey, Dean, here's an idea. How 'bout instead of writing stories about other people you write about yourself. Something like "The Life of a Boy Adventurer?"

"More like The Life of a Crybaby," Hank suggested.

"Hank you keep out of this. I've seen how you react when the Monarch attacked. It's not something to be proud of."

"Dean Venture - A Life! I like it," Dean shouted. "I'll do it. I can interview Pop and Brock and..."

"Can I be in your book?" Hank asked.

"Write your own book!" Dean said possessively and started running back to the Residence.

Gary worked on the surveillance camera till noon, then knocked off for the day. There were a lot of work to do to get the Venture Compound back to the state it ought to be in. He had all summer to finish the job. So why rush it. Besides some of the cameras needed internal parts. He made up a list of supplies and went to hit up Dr. Venture for some cash.

He found him in a small lab filled with electronics. Along one side was a small shooting gallery where a blackened mannikin wearing a charred camo uniform stood. "Say, Doc," he began "I've been checking inventory and have made up a list of parts we need to order. I've got the pricing and everything ready for your approval."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here - stick you finger here and tell me what you feel?"

'Here' was a red laser pointer light about six feet from its somewhat oversized projector.

"I'd like to keep my fingers, if you don't mind."

"What do I pay you for-"

"Actually you don't - pay me - the OSI does."

"Oh, for heaven's sake. There's nothing dangerous about it. See!" Doctor Venture ran his hand around the red light until at the last moment he accidentally touched the light. Gary saw the spot of red dance on his fingertip for only a second as the doctor, with a loud scream, convulsed, throwing himself across the room, landing hard against the wall, before collapsing.

Gary ran to Venture's side and placed a figure on his Carotid artery, feeling for a pulse. With a groan the Doctor pushed his hand away. "I'm all right," he said angrily and struggled to his feet.

"What was that thing?" Gary asked.

"My paralysis ray gun.. I ought to make a fortune with this, if I can get the bugs worked out."

"What the hell! It nearly killed you!"

"One of the bugs. I'm using a microwave laser to create a conductive path through the air then pumping 50,000 volts down the plasma conduit. Just enough to stun the target without injuring them."

"So it's a wireless Taser?"

"Well, yes, but the wireless part is patentable. The police will snap this up by the millions."

"You do know that Tasers kill people?"

"They do? Crap. Maybe I should sell this to the army as a death ray..."

"Yeah, maybe. Anyway, Doc, about these expenses..."

"Have you looked at my bank account lately? Butkiss. That's what's in my bank account. Butkiss. I was hoping to get the kinks worked out on this little baby and get it to market before the taxes are due next year."

"Maybe you ought to consider something less ... aggressive," Gary suggested.

The doctor grunted. "How many amps does it take to kill someone?"

It was Gary's turn to shrug. "One, two? I don't know."

"But if I don't put a lot of power into it the beam doesn't travel more than six feet before dissipating."

"Maybe that's good enough. You know, if you are looking for something to put on the market you might want to look into a better armored conduit for cables. I've been rewiring a dozen or more camera that had their cables cut over the years. They all had armored conduit but all it takes is a big pair of bolt-cutters to take them out. I was thinking of something like interlocking ceramic cones for force protection with a protective overcoat of kelvar or maybe carbon fiber. It ought to be as flexible as metal conduits but harder to crush and get at the wires inside. That's the sort of thing people would want more than they would a death ray."

"My old man made a fortune selling death rays!" the doctor snapped.

"Whatever. Anyway all I wanted was approval on this order..."

"I told you, there's no money!"

"Ok, then, I'll be going."

"And when you go crying to Col. Gathers - oh, I know your type - tell him I'm still waiting for the rent he owes for using my #4 assembly hall all last year. I sent a bill already. He knows what I'm talking about."

Back in the guard shack Gary spread out this list of supplies and went over it, scratching off things that weren't critical, adding things that could be improvised with. He got it down to forty dollars worth of hardware supplies. He folded the list and stuck it in his shirt pocket, checked his clothes in the lavatory mirror and decided everything was clean enough for a trip to town. He considered called Kim and see if she was free but the last time he'd called that Russian woman had answered and it seemed wise to lay off for a couple days before calling again. So he took the keys for the X-13 off the hook instead of the Charger's.

He was coming out of the hardware store with his bag of supplies when he heard the sound of gunfire. It sounded close and it sounded like it was moving in his direction. A police car had stopped at the intersection and Gary could see the officer in the driver's seat inside twisting his head, trying to find where the shots were coming from. His partner leaned over and said something to him. After a moment the driver rolled up his window and pulled into the hardware store's parking lot, parking out of sight behind a large truck.

That's interesting, Gary thought. This must be some Guild sanctioned operation for the police to knowing turn a blind eye to it. Idly he wondered what it might be about, but as long as it didn't involve the Ventures he didn't care.

He was turning to go to the car when a man ran into him. The man was in his 50s, a little overweight, very much out of shape and out of breathe. He was dressed in an expensive suit. He clutched at Gary's clothes as he bounced off the former henchman. "You got to help me!" he pleaded as his legs gave out and he started sliding to the ground. They're after me - my wife, my girlfriend, a bunch of crazy ladies. They're trying to kill me and the police won't do anything about it. For the love of God, help me!"

A wife and a girlfriend? What a schmuck, Gary thought. But the man had the look of an innocent civilian. He shouldn't be the target for a Guild operation.

"Do you want to live?" Gary asked the man.

"Of course I do!"

"Then come with me and do exactly as I tell you!" Gary thrilled to be using dialog from one of his favorite movies.

He lead the man a few feet down the block. The hardware store had taken over a stretch of old small stores to make one large building. The doors to the old stores had been blocked off but the recesses for the doorways remained. He pushed the man into one of the recesses and told him to kneel down. "Make yourself as small as possible. Don't move. Don't make a sound. Try not to even breathe," he instructed, then turned and stood in front of the huddled victim.

"You've got your ass in my face!" the man complained

"Do you want to live? Then shut up!"

Gary pulled the receipt out of his shopping bag and pretended to study it. From time to time he would pull something out of the bag and examine it, tapping the receipt as if comparing what he held in his hand with what was printed on the receipt. He kept this up for a minute or so.

Eventually a woman ran up to him, tall, slender, maybe even anorexic. "Citizen, did you see a man run past here?" she asked. Gary shrugged. She was dressed in a black catsuit with a plunging neckline. The only hint of color was a red heart on the left breast. Stiletto heels were on her feet. Clearly a Blackheart. Gary wondered if she was the mysterious assassin trying to kill the Venture brothers.

"I'm looking for a man, middle-aged, average height, a little overweight, in a well-made brown suit. Are you sure you haven't seem him?" she demanded.

"Look, I've been checking my receipt," Gary assumed an angry tone. "I think I've been screwed on a some of these prices and I'm trying to figure out which. I thought I saw someone running over that way." Gary waved his arm vaguely to the right. "I don't know, he added. Lying works best, he had discovered, when you lie the least.

The woman ran off in the direction Gary had indicated. She disappeared up the street Gary admired her ass. It was disappointingly skinny and flat, almost boyish. "That woman needs to eat some meat," he said out loud.

The man he had been hiding stirred. "Can I get up now?" he asked.

"Not yet," Gary told him, turning back to his receipt. Presently other woman were running past, tall, short, black, Asian, white, blonde and brunettes. One even kind of looked like Kim. He waited another minute until he was sure all the Blackheart on the mission had gone past but letting the man get up.

"What was that all about?" the man asked, still breathing heavily from his run.

"I thought you would know," Gary told him.

"Haven't a clue. I wax having lunch with my girlfriend when my wife showed up and started yelling at me. She grabbed the steak knife off my plate and tried to stab me but my girlfriend somehow got it from her. Then she starts trying to stab me with the knife. So I started running."

"Those were Blackhearts, an elite, all-women assassination group. They're very expensive so I don't think your wife hired them because you were cheating on her. Do you work for a defense contractor, maybe are in charge of corporate secrets?"

"I own my own business. We're doing quite well. But it's nothing to do with the government."

"Come with me." Gary lead the man in the direction away from the Blackhearts. He ducked through alleys whenever he could. "How long have you known your girlfriend?" He asked.

"A month, maybe two. It was love at first sight."

"More like sex on first night. That's an old Blackheart ploy. They use sex to lure men into their schemes."

"Brenda? You're saying Brenda's an assassin?"

"You got money on you?" Gary's meandering path was leading up to the bus station.

"Some," the man, naturally was hesitant to say how much.

"Good, you'll need it. Give a hundred now," Gary lead the way into the station and over to the waiting area. "Take off your coat and wad it up. They're looking for a man in a brown suit, so you can't keep wearing that suit. Take off the tie, unbutton your top button and roll up your sleeves. Try to look like a man in casual clothes. Wait over their while I get your bus ticket.

"I can't leave town now. I've got some important meeting to take."

"If you stay here the only meeting you're going to make is with the grim reaper."

Gary left to get the tickets.

He was back in a few minutes. He dragged the man out to the loading area. "Here's your ticket to Chicago. But you're not going there. In Toledo you're going to get on this bus-" Gary handed him a second ticket. "- which goes to Nashville. but you're not getting off there either. Somewhere in Kentucky get off the bus. I recommend the town of Deer Lick. Nice place. Not so small that a traveler would stand out but not so big that the Blackhearts would have an operative there. Stay there for a week. Whatever you do, don't use your credit card. They'll be on to you in a second. After a week think about going someplace and starting a new life. You come back here and they'll just finish what they started. Got that?"

"I can't believe this is happening to me."

"No one ever sees it coming," Gary assured him.

Gary watched the man board his bus and waited until the bus had left the station. He casually strode back to the X-13. He felt like a boy scout who had done his good deed for the day. On the other hand I gave the departing business man a 20 percent change of still being alive by the end of the month. All the advice he had given him was good ("Maybe I ought to write that book on henching," he thought) but the chances of the guy following everything was slight. That took too much discipline and people who got involved in Big Time Crime rarely were disciplined. Still he had done what he could. The Blackhearts weren't actually a Guild affiliate but they ran in something like the same waters. Screwing up one of their operations was almost like screwing up the Guild and as a former henchman Gary liked to screw with the Guild whenever he could.


	5. Chapter 5

Gary flipped on the light in his bunk and frozen in the doorway. Someone had entered his quarters, had turned his recliner around. Someone was pointing a gun with a very large bore right at his eyes, Someone with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and teeth clenched so tight it was a surprise they hadn't exploded already. Some one who looked a lot like Brock Samson.

"By rights I ought to kill you right now." Brock said.

Gary considered his lifetime of sins. None particularly stood out as warranting a Samson blackout. "I'm sorry about the car," he said to fill the void.

"This has nothing to do with the car - what did you do to my car."

"Nothing! I didn't touch it or anything. I just thought you might ..." he left it to Brock's imagination to fill in the blanks. If Gary's sphincter hadn't locked up tight the instant he saw Brock he's be standing in a pile of yellow right now.

"Get in. Close the door, turn off the lights."

Gary gulped, did what he was told. He could see the tip of Brock's cigarette for a moment before Brock stubbed it out. In the darkness he waited to die. For the past year he had told himself that life didn't matter anymore. He was beyond life and death, good and evil. He was filling his time until death came for him. Suddenly with death facing him in the darkness Gary realized that, really, he wanted to live. But you couldn't argue with Brock Samson. He let nothing deflect him from his task. If he meant to kill you, you'd be dead. "What did I do?" he asked nonetheless. "I thought you liked me."

"I do like you, Gary," Brock said, from another part of the room. The man had cat-like feet. Gary hadn't heard him move. "I'd hate to have to kill you, which is why you're not dead yet."

The barrel of the gun touched Gary's cheek. He felt his legs go rubbery under him. "Don't do that man. You know I know you can kill me anytime you want. Don't play with me like this. If you're going to kill me at least give me a little dignity."

Brock laughed. It was low and self-amused, but somehow scarier than one of the Monarch's cackles. "You're all right, Gary. You're all right. - Crap your pants?"

"Not yet but if you don't tell me what's going on pretty quick I may pass..." He hit the floor with a meaty thunk.

He was lying on his recliner when Gary finally recovered consciousness. He faked unconsciousness for a moment while he tried to make out his situation. From the smell of smoke he gathered that Brock was still in his room.

"Here's the thing. Gary," Brock began. How did he know that Gary was awake? "If I tell you what you did wrong then I'd have to kill you. Which would be inconvenient because other than this one thing you have been doing a pretty good job here."

"Really? Coming from you that's quite a compliment. Can I sit up?"

"Sure, knock yourself out."

"Literally, or - uh"

Brock laughed. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm not going to make you kill yourself either but we have a problem and you've got to fix it. What I'm going to tell you is secret. It's higher than Top Secret. It's higher than Double Dog Dare Secret. There are only three people who know this: Me, Doc and the Secret President. If you spill this I will come and kill you. And it won't be some quick knife in the gut either. Got me?"

"I don't think I'm ready for this." Gary answered truthfully. "Maybe you ought to confide it to someone more reliable..."

"I would if I could but you're it! Here's the deal. The boys can't look into their history. You've got to stop Dean from writing his tell-all book."

"You know about it?"

"Doc has been whining all day about it. They brought me back from an important operation just to talk to you.

"What's the big deal about that? So Doctor Venture been a bad father. It's not like that comes as a surprise."

"You have no idea the things Doc has done for the boys. You don't have the right to judge him."

"What? What did Doctor Venture do to and for his sons?" Gary asked.

The boys - they're not Doc's sons. ... They're clones!"

"That's it?" Gary asked incredulously. "Everybody knows the doctor was cloning people. He was even going to clone 24 for me but he didn't think I'd given him enough in trade."

"No they don't. Nobody knows that Doc can clone people."

"But I saw it. So did all the people from the OSI and the Monarch. We all know."

"The OSI troops had their brains washed. The Monarch is part of the Guild and the Guild knows how to keep a secret. Here's the deal, Gary: if the world knew that cloning was possible it would destroy society. People would be fighting tooth and claw for their own cloning tanks. Political figures would become immortal with an endless succession of clones replacing their bodies. Society would stagnate since the same people would remain in power.

"Plus the news would destroy the boys. The boys have suffered enough. They deserve better. Besides they're the last ones. We can't let them get killed. So you've got to convince Dean to not write his book And you've got to do it before he finds out the truth. You understand me?"

"Yeah." Gary breathed.

He waited for Brock to continue. After a long wait he realized that Brock had disappeared as quietly as he had appeared. He got up and flipped on the light. No one was there with him. Aside from a cigarette stubbed out on the console of the security desk there was not evidence that Brock had ever been here. He sighed, dropped down in a recliner and leaned back. His clothes were soaked in sweat. He shivered uncontrollably. Brock Samson. A direct order from the Man himself. Stop Dean Venture from writing a book that he had just encouraged him to write. Oh, yeah, That will be easy.

Gary didn't see how he could sleep after a visitation like that but the next thing he knew it was morning. And the phone was ringing.

"Yo?" he croaked while struggling to sit up in the recliner.

He was surprised to hear Triana's voice on the other end. "I just saw something - strange, and I thought I ought to tell you about it."

"If it's a naked Dean I'll talk to him."

"I'm serious, Gary, it was something weird. I - I thought I saw a - a - tree walk into the number 5 manufacturing wing."

"A tree?"

"A tree!" Triana insisted.

"Well, that's weird, even for the Venture's I'll be over to check it out. You someplace safe.?"

"I'm outside dad's residence."

"Smoking?" Gary asked.

"Eff off."

"Met you there. Try not to get killed in the meantime."

He hung up and dressed.

Triana was waiting out where she said she'd be, dressed in one of her father's old robes. It pooled at her feet, which were bare. "See! No more running around in T-shirts. Aren't you pleased."

"I didn't say you couldn't. I liked your legs, they looked good without the tights."

"Hey! I thought you were the one who with the steady girlfriend!" Triana's face reddened.

"I am. I'm hoping to take her out on a date tonight. That doesn't mean I don't notice a good looking girl when I see one."

"I liked you better when you weren't trying to flirt."

Gary grunted. "What's this about a walking tree?"

"I was out here smoking when I saw this - thing - leave the woods over there, walk over to the no. 5 manufacturing wing and duck through the doorway. It looked like a tree, all green, maybe eight feet tall."

"When you say tree do you mean a walking tree as in an Ent, or a Triffid or something else."

"What's a Triffid? Actually, you know, it looked like a giant head of broccoli. It had a slender base that rose about three quarters of the way up,, then spread out into a roundish head of tight curls."

"A Veggie Tales tree? How was it moving? Was it hopping about?"

"Veggie Tales? Triffids? What are these things?" Triana said with a confused look. "It didn't hop, it just sort of slithered. I didn't really see any legs or stuff. It just sort of moved. It was all over so quickly and I was so surprised by the whole thing... Besides, how can a tree move? It doesn't have legs, or muscles, or a nervous system."

"We shall see. If I'm not back in a half hour, call Dr. Venture, then get your dad and get the hell out of here."

"I'm going with you."

"Why? You'd be safer here."

"I feel like a crazy person. I want to see this tree. I want to know I'm not crazy."

"Suit yourself. But stay back and let me do point."

"Sure. Ah, don't you have any kind of weapons with you?"

"If this is a tree what good would a gun do? Have you ever tried to shoot down a tree? It doesn't work. I've got my knives-" he popped the blade out of their wrist sheaths "- and I've got l'il slugger here." He held up a child's baseball bat. It was only 30 inches long and tapped like a regular bat.

"A bat?"

"They're designed for hitting things. What better weapon can there be? It's small and lightweight so it's maneuverable yet can really pound things when you apply it. You want it? Give you something to defend yourself with."

"No, I don't need a weapon, I'm a sorceress, remember."

They'd been walking over to the manufacturing wing all this time. Gary paused on the steps. "I thought you were like a first semester witch. I hardly imagine that teach a freshman any really dangerous spells."

"I can make fire. I think that would deter a tree. Besides maybe it's a friendly tree."

Gary pushed open the door and paused in the doorway. He took a small flashlight from a pocket and shone its light around the top and sides of the frame. The flashlight emitted an electric violet light typical of 'black lights.'

"What are you looking for?" Triana asked.

"I was hoping that maybe the substance from your walking tree would glow under UV light. It would give us some proof that the thing exists." With a sign, Gary turned the flashlight off and put it in his pocket again. "So much for that idea," he said as they walked into a reception area.

A counter along one side defined a secretary's station. On the other wise was an open area where chairs and couches once sat. Narrow stairs lead to offices on an upper level, while corridor lead back to the factory floor. There was no tree.

"Do you think it went upstairs?" Triana asked.

Gary shook his head and went down the corridor and into the factory.

The building had long since been stripped of all its machinery. All that remained was a large empty room the size of a football field. Light from a row of clerestory windows illuminated the room. Lanes were marked out in scarred yellow paint. Locations of equipment were marked by pipes coming up out of the floor and electrical conduits dropping down from the ceiling. But aside from these the room was empty. Dusty and empty.

"No tree." Triana sighed. "I guess I am going nuts."

"Don't be so hard on yourself. This is the Venture Compound. It's, like, the center of weirdness for the entire tri-state area. If there's a walking tree anywhere in this country it will find its way here."

"Great." Triana wandered off looking around the big factory like it was the Sistine Chapel. Her eyes focused on the floor for a moment. "Gary, come here."

"Look at the floor," she said when he got there. Gary looked but didn't see anything.

"Look at how the dust is all swirled around, like a wind blew through here," she explained. "but all the doors and windows are closed, so no wind!"

Gary pulled out the UV light and shined it on the swirls but nothing showed up. He unclipped a big maglight from his belt and directed that on the floor. The dust seemed to swirl first one way then the other. He followed across the floor to where a water pipe had been leaking. There was a large wet spot there but no standing water. "I think your tree came in here for a drink of water then left." he said.

"Where did he go?"

"Got any tricks in your bag of spells?"

"Divination is next semester. Wait, is the dust disturbed over there?"

The spoor lead towards the back of the building and to a rear door. Although locked on the outside, the inside push bar would open the door any time. Gary pushed the door open and carefully looked outside. No one and no walking tree was waiting for them. The woods that covered the north of the Compound ran up within sixty feet of the building. It was hard to tell from the grass whether anything had moved over it. While there was nothing in the woods that looked like an eight foot tall head of broccoli.

"Nothing." Triana sighed.

"I wouldn't say that. It seems pretty clear that something is going on. I'll tell the doctor about it. And in the mean time keep your windows closed and locked and don't go wandering in the woods alone."

"Yeah, just ignore the rabid bat under your bed and all will be well."

"As a former henchman, that pretty much defines my life."

Gary found Dr. Venture in the kitchen flailing away on a short length of black plastic tubing. "Oh. It's you," he said when he noticed Gary watching. "Here, give it a whack," and handed Gary the hammer.

The tubing looked like a length of armored conduit. Gary tried not to smile at the thought that the Doctor had taken his suggestion to heart, raised the hammer and brought it down with all his strength.

"Oh, great," Dr. Venture complained. "Now I've got a dent in my counter. Just great!"

"But the conduit looks to be OK," Gary tried to sooth.

"It's is?" The Doctor ripped it from Gary's hands and peered at it near-sightedly. "No, some of the beads have shattered. Damn!"

"But the wires are still good, isn't that the point."

"Oh. Yes, of course. Now if I can just get the unit cost down... You know," the doctor threw the length of cable back on the counter, "everyone says that Thomas Edison was a genius because he patented so many things. But if you read up on what he did, it was mostly trial-and-error until he got what he wanted. Like this cable. I've been trying out various types of armoring and finally found this ceramic thingie that does the trick. It's all in my notes..."

Which you probably wrote up and back-dated while waiting for the clays to bake, Gary thought. The idea that the great Dr. Venture had actually taken one of his ideas and turned it into a real product was thrilling enough at the moment. Later Gary would wonder about how much of that money rightfully belonged to him.

"Say, Dr. Venture have you ever done any experimentation with trees. May hybriding some animal tissues with a vegetable, or something?"

"What an absurd idea. Why would you ask such a ridiculous question"

"You apparently have a walking tree problem in building number 5."

"Set some traps. So, did Brock talk to you about that thing last night?"

"I'm surprised I'm still alive!"

"What? No, Brock wouldn't do anything like that. He's a pussycat."

"Doc, we both know that's not true." Gary had been looking into the sink. He held up a charred aluminum skillet. "What happened here?"

"Since you weren't here to cook them breakfast, the boys tried to do it on their own. I'm luck they didn't burn down the house."

"They don't know how to cook?" was Gary's first response, followed by, "I'm your head of security, not your chief cook and bottle-washer."

"My security includes a healthy and nutritious breakfast."

Gary dropped the pan back into the sink.

"Brock was very clear about stopping the book from being published. Do you have any idea how to stop Dean from writing it, 'cause they're not the kind of simply listen to orders."

"Kill him?" Dr. Ventures mused. "No, we can't do that, we don't have any spares."

"I'm not going to kill somebody just because they know too much. Besides, how can the boys not already know they're" - he whispered the word - "clones."

"I'll show you," Dr. said Venture and walked away without waiting to see if Gary was following him. He took him out into the labs and down into a sub-basement. The room was large and mostly dark, with only a few emergency lights burning. It was filled with rows and rows of broken cylindrical glass tanks mounted atop machinery of some sort. Dr. Venture lead Gary away from that area to a corner where piles of boxy computers hummed and whirred.

"A mainframe" Gary whispered in awe. "That thing has got to be older than even the Monarch's."

"To my knowledge it's been here all my life. But it still works. Inside here are all my father's recording for the boy's sleep beds and - and the recordings of the boy's memory taken from the sleep beds. This is the master copy of Hank and Dean!"

"On tape?"

"I can't figure out how to install a hard drive."

"No, I mean, you have Hank and Dean's whole lives here on tape?"

"What so surprising about that? Dr. Venture snapped. "This is where it all started. My downfall into misery and madness. My great mistake,"

"Cloning your sons?"

"No, having sex with women."

"You're gay?"

"God, no. I've lusted after woman all my life. I just never had any luck with them. My Dad, though, he must have screwed everything woman he ever saw, and probably a few of the men as well. And for all that fornication what he have to show for it? Me, one lousy son. While me, I can't have sex with a woman without them getting pregnant. One time with Myra - knocked up. One time with Nikki - knocked up. I'm surprised Dr. Girlfriend didn't get knocked up the one time we did it."

"You slept with Dr. Mrs. The Monarch!"

"She called herself Charlene at the time. And she claims that nothing happened. But if nothing happened why was she naked in my bed the next morning. Answer me that will you?"

Gary was growing red in the face and unconsciously knotting his fingers.

"Oh, great," Dr. Venture whined. "That's right, you had the hots for her, too."

"She's dead to me," Gary replied with great difficulty.

"Good, just keep thinking those thought," Dr. Venture said, quietly laying down the wrench he had picked up a moment earlier.

"Anyway, Myra was my bodyguard after my father's death, murdered, probably by a jealous husband. The OSI decided that between my father's existing inventions and the ones they were sure I would come up with, they needed someone on hand to keep me alive. Also someone was slashing my tires a lot and leaving butterflies in my car. You know the Monarch has been Arching me for years, many of them without approval from the Guild. In those early days he wasn't any better at Arching then I was at super-science.

"One warm Hawaiian night - we were at a conference on trans-chronal anti-gravity - Myra put away a few too many gin rickeys and slipped out of her clothes and into my bed. It was my greatest triumph. Thanks to my father's upbringing I was both tongue-tied around woman and - sadly - impotent. Myra fixed both problems that night."

"Who's Nikki?"

"A fan. Of the Rusty Venture show. The show had been canceled for something like ten years earlier, but it was still showing in parts of the country. When she found out that the Venture Compound was near by she started calling on me in person. I think Myra kept her away for a while, but after she got knocked up with twins she kind of let her job slide. So I met Nikki, who said she was 19 - and looked it, too!" the Doctor said defensively, "but she was only fifteen. So I screwed her and she got pregnant and I had to pay off her mother to keep it quiet. I've got three more years on that child support..."

Doctor Venture wandered among the broken vats running his hands over the undamaged parts of their surfaces, lost in memories.

"It looks like you're fixing up some of these machines," Gary said. "I thought the deal with the OSI was you never clone anything again."

"What they don't know won't hurt them." He looked at Gary meaningfully. "The boys are doomed. They need back-ups. It may not work but I've got to try."

"Wont' they be born as babies? That's what you said when I asked you to clone 24. Or were you lying about that."

"No, the growth rate can't be accelerated. It just turns the cells cancerous. At least that's what my father's notes say. So it would take nine months to grow your friend to where he could survive on his own. Just like with a baby, it's a matter of lung development. they just aren't ready before 36 weeks. But the tanks are large enough that the grub can be grown to full size - in twenty years time."

"Wasn't there an episode of the Rusty Venture Show where you were chased by a cancer blob?"

"Oh, God, you're another fan," Dr. Venture groaned. "Yes. I remember that episode. It was incredibly lame because all I did was ran and scream. Not Rusty Venture material at all. Of course running and screaming was pretty much all I did when dad took my on his trips. Come to think of it, even the Cancer monster was real. One of dad's failed experiments.

"But we know a lot more about endocrinology now then we did back in dad's day. I think it's possible, with care, to accelerate the cell's aging for a while then stop it, giving me seventeen year old grubs in case my boys need them in just a few months."

"Don't you think you've messed them up enough already?"

"Don't you think I don't know that? Doctor Venture snapped. "But it's too late now, all I can do is just keep muddling forward. If I don't, all this crap I've done for them will be wasted."

"A couple months after the boys were born," Dr. Venture continued after a moment, "Some jackass using the name "Smarticus" decides to attack the compound, sets fire to the place, kills a lot of my employees. Myra was trying to evacuate with the boys when he dropped a bomb near her. She was in the hospital for months. The boys - didn't make it.

"Smarticus! What a stupid name. I wrote the Guild a strongly worded letter telling them I'd never agree to be Arched by anyone with a stupid name ever again."

"And they listened?"

"They damn well had better. My great-grandfather co-founded the damned Guild. Dean's the legitimate heir to the damned thing. You were there when he anointed David Bowie as his Sovereign in charge. It's all crap. I wish I'd opted out when my dad died. It would have saved me a lot of grief.

"So where was I?"

"Your sons had died."

"Myra was inconsolable. She blamed me for the boys' death and wouldn't even speak to me for weeks. If I'd read up on psychology then like I did later I would have realized she was still in the second stage of grief - anger and in time would get over it. I had gone straight to stage 3 - bargaining - and thought I could fix everything if I could just bring the boys back. I remembered that my father had done some experimentation with cloning, dug around and found his prototype chamber and dusted it off. It was surprisingly complete as it stood. I made some modifications based on modern research and had a hundred units manufactured. I exhumed the boys' bodies, harvested some tissue and got to work. The real trick to cloning is convincing skin cells that they're really fertilized egg cells and providing them enough nutrients for them to grow into a blastocyte. From there it's easy to attach them to an artificial placenta and let them grow.

It was a year to the day after the boys' death that the grubs were ready to come out. Myra was still profoundly depressed about the death of her boys. I thought this would cheer her up." Dr. Venture stopped talk and looked at Gary. "This is the part where you say I must have been crazy."

"Oh, I said that a long time ago. This is like a bad horror movie where the characters make every wrong decision imaginable - splitting up, taking showers - and you sit there wondering how much worse can this movie get."

"I don't even know why I'm telling you this. All you need to know is that the boys can't find out about this. You got that!"

"Personally I think you're making a big mistake. The truth wants out and knowledge will make you free. The boys will do better knowing they're clones."

"Put a sock in it!" Dr. Venture snapped.

"Whatever."

"So I decant a pair of twins, clean them up, wrap them in blankets and take them to Myra with a big "surprise," thinking this will make her happy after a very depressing year of her crying about her lost boys. But does she thank me for using some super-science to bring her boys back? No. She goes ape-shit all over me. Calls me a monster. Calls me every name in the book. Then she leaps for my throat. I had to call in an OSI SWAT team to take her down.

"The boys were, surprisingly, unhurt. And just like that I was a single father. The next couple years are a blur as I tried to raise two boys and run the business as well. Myra was placed in a sanatorium diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Because she thinks I killed the boys then brought them back to life in some kind of Satanic cult." Venture laughed dryly. "It's kind of ironic. She's locked up because they think she's delusional but she's not. She knows exactly what happened. Makes you wonder how many other paranoid schizophrenics aren't crazy, they just know a reality that no one else does."

Gary had no comment.

Venture continued, "every so often she escapes and tried to save the boys from me.

"Finally they sent me Brock and things settled down a bit. I think Brock was being exiled at the time. I mean he was over-qualified to be a bodyguard, but I really needed the help. The business really ran down while I was distracted and I've never been able to turn it around.

"How many times have you had to clone the boys?" Gary asked.

"Just the once. Weren't you listening? I made fifty clones of each boy the one time. Whenever they die I'd decant another set."

"So repeat cloning doesn't explain why the boy are the way they are."

"What's wrong with the boys besides being idiots."

"Doesn't it seem strange that the sons of the famous Dr. Venture, Super-Scientist, are 'idiots'?"

"They're not idiots. They're as smart as you or I. I've got the tests to prove it."

"From their sleep beds?"

"Well, yeah."

"I rest my case."

Dr. Venture sputtered for a moment, protesting that Gary had it all wrong, though he wasn't sure just what he was defending.

"So how many times have you 'decanted" your boys? And what do you do when only one of them dies?"

Venture turned white at that question and turned away from the former henchman to work furiously on one of the half-assembled cloning tank. After a time trying to fit a sub-assembly into a slot it clearly didn't fit he threw it across the room and sighed. "Fourteen. They're very death-prone. You've got your job cut out for you keep this last set alive."

"And the others?"

"What could we do," Doctor Venture protested. "We couldn't let the boys know they were clones. When one died we had to start fresh with two new grubs."

"You killed the remaining clone just so you could start off fresh? You - you..." now it was Gary's turned to walked away. He was to the stairs leading upstairs when Dr. Venture caught up to him. "Don't you run out on me. And don't you get all high and mighty about it either. We're all cold-blooded killers here. Yes, I've killed my own sons for their own good. I'm not proud of it. It haunts me at nights. But I've seen you, number 21, you've killed people. You've killed plenty of people to get what you wanted. You're no better than me, so don't act like you are!"

"I'm beginning to have second thoughts about this whole thing," Gary said, turning around. "I thought the Monarch was evil because he's a super-villain but he hasn't killed nearly as many people as you and Brock has. Or at least Brock has. The Monarch has come up with many fiendish plans but he's never done anything as plain sick as you and your clone replacement program. Maybe the whole point of the Guild of Calamitous Intent was to keep scientists like you too busy to screw up the world more than it already is!"

"Duh!"

"Duh?"

"I figured that out when I was, like, 17," Dr. Venture said. "Which is when I climbed out of _my _sleeping bed and went off to college."

"You had a sleeping bed?"

"Again, duh! Who do you think invented them? A duffer like me? Who do you think programmed them. It was all my old man's idea. The only reason I used them on the boys was to record their memories so I could pump it back into the next set of clones. Besides, I couldn't send them to public school, they'd be sitting targets for one of my enemies. I know it's not been a good arrangement but in my - and their - situation, it was the best I could come up with.

Gary sat down on the corner of one of the cloning tanks and thought for a while. Dr. Venture fidgeted for a while then went off looking for the circuit-board he had heaved. When he got back Gary was looking at him speculatively.

"Tell me about your mother," he asked.

"My mother?"

"Do you know anything more about your mother than your sons know about theirs?"

"What do you mean? Why I -" the doctor paused as a sudden thought struck him. "You think I'm a clone? Don't be ridiculous!"

"I've never heard of a Mrs. Venture. Just Dr, Venture - your father - and Rusty. And you said these cloning tanks were more or less operational when you found them."

"Why would my father want to clone me?"

"Maybe because he couldn't have children."

"Now this is just getting sick. I won't listen to it."

"So why won't you tell me about your mother.

"All right. My birth certificate names 'mother' as 'Jane Doe,' and lists her as a Caucasian female age 23, 5' 6", 135 pounds with brunette hair. All my life my father never mentioned her and would not answer any questions about her. After he died I hired private detectives to track her down. And there was nothing. Their best conclusion was that my birth certificate was forged. But to suggest I was cloned - that's ridiculous!"

"Would you go nuts if it could be proved that you were a clone?" Gary asked.

"Don't you mean _more_ nuts?" the doctor snarled sarcastically. "Look, the boys are a lot more fragile than I am. I can handle it, they couldn't. But why would my father clone me. It's not like he was particularly fond of me."

"I've been thinking about that." Gary said. "You said your great-grandfather co-founded the Guild of Calamitous Intent, and that Dean was the current true sovereign."

"So?"

"That would have meant that at one time _you_ were the sovereign and your father efore that.. But if your father didn't have a son the sovereignty would have been in dispute. God only knows what reign of terror that would have caused. So maybe when he discovered that he couldn't have children he turned to super-science to avoid chaos in the Guild."

"You might want to check your Guard Shack for gas leaks because you sound like you've been sniffing glue too long."

"Let's get out of here. It gives me the creeps," Gary said and headed for the stairs ago. "I'm not reporting this to headquarters but I think you're making a big mistake rebuilding those tanks."

From the top of the stairs Gary looked out into the Venture's living room. Dean was hunched over something on a table that looked like, but not quite like, a laptop. After a moment he realized it was an old fashion typewriter. Dean was typing intently. Triana was leaning over his shoulder reading whatever it was he was writing. Hank was on the couch, a notebook in his lap. He was writing furiously, with long pauses to look venomously at Dean. This would be a great time to intrude and try to convince both boys, apparently, not to write a tell-all book. But at the same time he could see Brock, quietly, methodically grabbing their heads and giving them a fatal snap. . No wonder he loved these boys. He'd killed them so many times. He had thought Brock incapable of emotion but apparently not. Guilt had driven him to love the thing he had to kill.

And now the responsibility was Gary's. Keeping the boys alive if he could, killing them if he couldn't. He felt nauseous. And if Triana found out too much - or guessed too much - he'd have to kill her. How could he explain that? He look at the living room and suddenly saw it filled with piles of dead Hanks and Deans. Even the Dean at the typewriter had become a skeleton, Triana a ghost...

Gary rushed out of the residence.


	6. Chapter 6

Day 6 (Actually Day 5 - part 2 - before the date

Gary fled back to his guard shack, locked the door, lowered the blinds and turned out the light. He sat in the darkness trying not to think. Trying not to think about how he had killed Hank and Dean once before, maybe ever two or three times before and yet there they were palling around with him (at times). Certainly not aware that they had died. Or than an earlier version of them had died. Were these soulless monsters, like zombies? Or did souls ever exist? How would God deal with this in the afterlife. Gary wasn't especially religious, though he did believe that God existed. He just wasn't sure whether God was a super-scientist or a super-villain.

He wasn't sure how he was going to get Dean to drop the tell-all book idea since neither Hank or Dean ever listened to reason or the opinion of others. If it were that simple Doctor Venture could have told them to drop it and that would be the end of it.

He tried to clean his mind of all thinking, do that zen thing, but it wasn't working. All he just kept thinking about was Dean, a skeletal Dean pecking away at that typewriter, a dead man writing his memoirs.

And they weren't really his memoirs. Most of that stuff happened to some other Dean Venture, lots of Dean Ventures, none of whom survived except as electronic data pump into the latest clone's empty mind.

Maybe that explains the boys goofiness? They've had sixteen years of experience pumped into their brains but they haven't actually lived any of it. They hadn't absorbed any of the lessons-learned from their earlier life because it was never their life. It was like training for combat. One repeats the same moves over and move until they can be done without any thought. What was called 'muscle memory.' They hadn't trained at life. It was all theoretical to them. Which meant, he supposed that the longer these clones stayed alive the more like normal people they'll become.

He wondered if Dr. Venture had ever thought of any of this?

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Gary?" Triana called through the partition.

He tried to ignore her knocking figuring she's soon give up and go away.

She didn't.

Reluctantly he got up and unlocked the door. "Yeah?"

"Wow," Triana said as she looked into the darkened room. "Is this, like, your Man-Cave?"

"I was going more for a Fortress of Sulkitutde."

"You need a cat or a giant teddy bear. You can't do a sulk without a proper pet!" Triana laughed. "Look, she said, turning serious, "you ran out of the residence so fast, like you'd seen a ghost, and not your dead friend's ghost, either. I thought I ought to look and see if you're OK.

"It's nothing."

"Anyway you didn't stay to read the first chapter of Dean's book. It's great. It's the best idea you ever had. Dean has been writing like crazy. He's just incredible excited about the whole idea."

"He's been bugging the hell out of his dad." Gary added.

"But that's good. He needs to clear up a lot of questions about his life," Triana said. "He doesn't know anything about his mother. Nothing about his grandfather, Dr. Jonas Venture, senior. There are so many questions and the more answers he has about them the better he'll be."

"You think."

"Of course, why not?"

Gary just shrugged. He didn't trust himself to say anything that might reveal secret information.

"Anyway, I brought a copy of his first chapter. You ought to read it, it's great."

"I'm not much into reading." Gary lied.

"Here, I'll read it to you." And Triana sat on the arm of Gary recliner. He was acutely conscious of the warmth from her hip pressing against his shoulder, and a faint smell of sandalwood. It made him too aware that he hadn't seen Kim in a couple days. Not since that Russian woman had answered the phone. He vowed to call her right after he got rid of Triana. And he would insist on a real date this time. Not another quick roll in the hay.

" 'The City on the Hill'," Triana began.

" 'My earliest memory is of looking through a window, a tall curved window that looked over over a fairyland of shining towers and strange machinery. A vast city of soaring glass buildings housing millions and reflected from every tower was my image. I seemed to be everywhere. Tall and majestic. Strange sounds - hummings and pings, creaks and groans assaulted my ears. Who is this person I wondered who was so exalted that his image was everywhere? I knew them I was destined for greatness. The reality has been somewhat less than that.

" 'I remember closing my eyes to sleep again and as I did all the other Dean Ventures closed their eyes as well.'

"Isn't that just great? Triana asked. "I didn't know he could be such a good writer. This book is going to be a blockbuster." She paused.

Gary had gone white and whiter. The phrase "he knows" pounded in his head with each beat of his heart, like a death knell. This was worse than he had imagined. Dean doesn't have to ask any questions all he has to do was look into his own memories, the real ones, not the implanted ones and he'd know he wasn't dreaming. He was looking out from inside his cloning tank. It would all be just a matter of time.

"Gary, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing."

"You're white as a sheet. 

"I can't tell you."

"Of course you can. You can tell me anything. Nothing shocks me anymore. Don't you remember I'm a Sorceress now. I knew secrets of the universe that would curdle your blood." She smiled down at him and bumped his shoulder good naturedly.

"I thought you were like only in your first semester of magic school. I bet at this point they haven't entrusted you with any secrets, they probably haven't even given you the keys to the restroom." Gary tried to make it sound like a joke.

"Try me," Triana huffed.

Gary considered testing her. How would she react if he said he was gay, or a cannibal, or even a necrophile? Not that any of that was true. Would that shocker her? Probably not. It was hard to shock anyone these days. Gary remembered a story he'd read, one of Dashiell Hammett's where at the end of the story the villain whispers into the detective's eye the "vilest word in the English language". He'd spent a week wondering what that word was. Was there any word so vile that it couldn't be used by people today?

"Really, I can't tell you, it's a secret." he said.

"Is it about the boys?"

"Triana, did you ever hear that line from the movies, 'I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you'? Don't ask! Don't guess!"

"Because you'd kill me? Gary, that's crazy!"

"Not only would I have to kill you but I'd probably be forced to dig my own grave before they killed me."

"That's insane!"

"He can't write that book," Gary blurted.

"I knew it! Dr. Venture's behind it!" Triana said, getting angry. Gary was willing to leave her with that misconception. "Well, if you've got to stop him from writing the book," she said, "you'd better come up something more interesting to do because I don't think anything else is going to stop him."

"Any idea what I could do to distract him?"

"Don't ask me, Sparky," Triana replied sourly. "You're the one who doesn't want Dean to write his book. I don't dare make any suggestions in case I accidentally learn something and you have to accidentally do away with me. I am, by the way, leaving a note for my father blaming you if anything happens to me. I don't like threats Gary and I don't like 'running to daddy' but if you're going to make boring threats, then so am I."

She grabbed up the pages and headed for the door. As she reached for the knob there was a loud thud, like the sound of a hammer on wooden floor followed a second later with a loud, sharp crack, like a bolt of lightning going right overhead.

"What the hell was that!" she cried. Gary had already leaped from the recliner and run to the window, pulling the Venetian blinds down so he could see out. A cloud of dust was rising from the side of the Venture building. Behind was a man-sized hole in the brick. Triana was suddenly beside him, peering out. She was about to say something when there was another boom-crack. Bricks lifted from the wall at another spot and rained on the ground below.

Gary didn't bother to answer. From a closet he took out a belt and holster, checked the clip in the gun then throw a rifle over his shoulder. "Stay put," he told Triana and raced towards the complex.

He race low and fast, changing direction every few seconds to throw the shooter off. He was about half way across the yard when there was a sharp crack so loud and so close he thought like he had felt the breeze as well. He threw himself to the ground and tried to think small, green thoughts.

"What was that?" Triana called from just behind him.

"What part of 'stay put' don't you understand!"

"I thought I could help."

"You could help best by not getting killed."

Another crack flashed overhead. This time Gary was sure he'd felt the breeze from whatever was being fired at them. He looked around for cover and couldn't find any. The shooter, so far, had not been able to depress their weapon enough to pick them off, but unless they moved it would only be a matter of time before he got their range. "You got anything in that magical bag of tricks that'll make us look like a low green hump of grass?" he called to Triana. "Or better yet, an illusion of us running one way while we can run the other way?"

"I can make a fireball," Triana said uncertainly.

"That might work. Can you project it over that way, near that tall pine outside the compound?"

"I - uh -" she hesitated, then in a more certain voice she said, "Yes, yes, I can."

"Let me know when it's about to go off."

"You'll have about half a second after "vectus" - that completes the spell." Triana said. She began chanting in some unknown tongue.

While she was chanting Gary was scanning the hills outside the compound where the shoot must be. There was another boom-crack but no flash of powder or trailing smoke. That was odd. Also, the shooter seemed able to make three shots at about ten seconds intervals then had to wait a minute or more before making another three shots. That was an odd sort of weapon, he thought. When Triana came to 'Vectus' he closed his quickly. A moment later a surprisingly large wave of heat washed over his face. He jumped up, grabbed Triana and started running towards the entrance of the main building. He was all but throwing Triana through the door before him when the frame exploded in his face. He closed his eyes and hoped for the best as he dived the last few feet into the building. His ears were still ringing from the first explosion when a second strike went through the doorway and exploded against the far wall behind a receptionist's desk. He didn't hear it explode.

"What are you doing here," Dr. Venture complained. He was cowering behind a large chair in the lobby. "The shooter's out there, not in here."

"I wanted to make sure you were all right."

"I'll be alright once you get that shooter."

"Where are the boys?" 

"Safe in the panic room."

Another bullet smashed into the lobby. Everyone ducked behind something. "Damn it!" complained Dr. Venture, "my home owner's insurance does not cover attacks by super-villains. How am I going to fix all this up?"

"Hi pops!" Hank did a barrel roll into the lobby and crab-walked to the chair his father and Gary were sharing. "What's up?"

"Why aren't in the panic room with your brother?" Dr. Venture angrily asked.

"I wanted to help."

"You'll help by not getting killed. So move your fanny into the panic room right now!" They all ducked as another round came crashing through the door. "If anybody is getting killed today, he is," Dr. Venture waved towards Gary. "That's his job."

"Hi, Gary. What's up?" Hank said, not moving from where he was crouched next to Triana.

"Someone seems to be firing on us with an RPG."

"What?" Triana asked.

"Rocket-propelled grenades." Hank explained. "They're cool. It's kind of like a bazooka, only smaller."

"It's not an RPG. There would be a larger explosion," Dr. Venture said. "And there wouldn't be that characteristic secondary crack when the bullet arrives. That's a railgun."

Triana looked to Hank for an explaination, but he only shrugged and looked to Gary, who was as mystified as the other.

"Oh, for Pete's sake. Don't you people keep up with high-energy physics?" Dr. Venture whined. "A railgun uses electrostatic propulsion to boost a payload to speeds of 1 or 2 miles per second. That's two to four times faster than the muzzle velocity of a bullet. What looks like explosions are simply small weights hitting with incredible kinetic force."

"So why's it called a railgun." Triana asked.

"Because it takes a railroad to haul it around?" Hank wondered.

"No, because the electrostatic force runs down a pair of steel rails pushing the payload in front of it. The rails are probably only six or eight feet long. It's fairly portable except for the capacitors, which are probably the size of mail pails."

"Capacitors! That's why there's such a slow rate of fire." Gary said. "It takes ten or twenty seconds to recharge the capacitors. But why not use a regular gun, that would have a higher rate of fire?"

"Regular bullets would have almost no momentum left at this distance," Dr. Venture explained. "Geeze, didn't any of you people ever go to school? Hank, you of all people ought to know this stuff. It was covered in your sleep bed last year!"

"GED after the Monarch kidnapped me. I don't think High Energy Physics was on the test," Gary answered, irritated by Dr. Venture's superior attitude. "Still the shooter can't fire rapidly I think the quickest route would be to take that armored personal carrier you've got in your garage and make a frontal run at him."

"Are you nuts?" Dr. Venture snapped. "The projectiles would got through that APC like it was cardboard. We're talking two mile per second bullets. Besides it would fifty gallons of diesel to get out there and - uh - heh-heh - I don't have any."

There was the sound of someone slapping their forehead. Gary was thankful it was Triana and not him, although he shared her feelings.

"For someone trying to kill us it doesn't seem like a very effective means of doing it." Gary observed.

"Maybe they're waiting for us to get outside and moon them defiantly, like in Braveheart." Hank suggested.

"Hank! No one is going outside to moon anybody!" his father told him. "Didn't I tell you to go to the Panic room?"

His words were drowned out by another crash of a hyper-kinetic smashing against the side of the building.

"If I had some idea where the shooter was sitting I could go out the back of the building, run around the outside of the fence and come up behind him - or her" - Gary was remembering that whoever had attacked them earlier had been a woman. And this was probably the same person.

"That's a two mile run! It'll take you forever to get there." Triana protested.

"Really, 21. I'm in better shape than you are and I can't run a block," Dr. Venture added.

"This is not flab!" Gary protested, slapping his stomach. "I've done a lot of working out this past year. I can make that run in ten or twelve minutes. I just need you guys to give me some covering fire to keep the shooter focused on the front here while I'm slipping out the back." He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and looked at who to give it to. His eyes flicked from Dr. Venture to Hank to Triana and back. Triana was vigorously shaking her head. Dr. Venture was holding out his hand for the gun but Gary handed it to Hank.

"Hank? Hank couldn't hit the side of a barn."

"I can to, Pop!"

"He passed all the entrance requirements for SPHINX, except for age. That right there says he's a better shot than you, Dr. Venture."

"But, I'm Rusty, Boy adventure. I've been shooting guns all my life!"

"You never hit anything in those shows. Dr. V."

"Fine, be that way," Dr. Venture said petulantly. "But Hank, if you get killed I'll never talk to you again!"

With a brave smile to Triana, Gary took off to the far end of the main building.

He was huffing a bit more than he expected by the time he reached the rear of the building. It had been longer than he realized since he'd done a full five mile run. He could still hear the boom-crack of the attack from the front.

Gary took off his shirt and wadded it up in his hands before taking a running start at the chain link fence surrounding the compound. There were strands of bard wire across the top. He grabbed these through his shirt, pulling himself up and flipping over the top. He was even able to pull his shirt with him as his landed on his feet. Because it was black, he put it back on. It would work as camouflage.

Gary headed east first, working his way into the woods surrounding the compound before turning north and closing in on the shooter at the front. He had to detour an extra quarter-mile before finding a place to cross the highway that passed in front of the compound where the shooter couldn't see him.

Going up into the hills was slower now as he tried to run without making any noise. As he drew closer to where he imagined the shooter had to be located he could tell that the crack came before the boom. It was a sonic boom created as the railgun accelerated its payload to speeds greater than that of sound. The boom was the sound of the payload impacting on the Venture building..

Gary paused to tear a couple small branches from a tree and wove them together to make a leafy cap. More camouflage.

He started creeping through the brush,ever vigilant for the shooter. The sound of a car running at high speed told him he was near.

He spotted the car first. An over-sized alternator was mounted in the hood and cables ran back from it over a small crest. Peering over the top he could see the railgun and beside it several open boxes filled with blue cylinders the size of loaves of bread. Heavy wires ran from posts at the tops of the cylinders to a board where they merged into one heavy cable of woven copper that lead to the railgun.

The gun was mounted on a tripod with heavy - and insulted - handgrips at the end. A spotting score was mounted near the grips, away from the pair of copper pipes that formed the rails. The shooter was adjusting the sights as Gary peer over the crest. She - it was definitely a woman - was dressed in a tight fitting one-piece suit. A stocking cap was pulled down over her face. Both cap and catsuit were colored a mottled green-gray-brown. He could hear the faint pac-pac as Hank fired his rifle. The distance was so great that Gary doubted that the bullets were any danger but it still worried him that he was about to jump into life fire.

It didn't occur to Gary at the moment that he was carrying a loaded pistol and was well with his rights as an OSI operative to shot the attacker where she squatted. Maybe it was because she was a woman. Maybe it was because she had a really nice ass, but mostly it was because it would involved shooting her in the back and even when he was a henchman for the Monarch he didn't like doing that.

There was a loud crack. A portion of the lower region of the gun had disappeared. Swiftly the shooter pulled a couple levers back and reaching into a bag at her feet picked up a metal ball about two inches in diameter. She fitted this on the machine, then watched as a panel of twelve lights slowly turned from red to green.

Gary leaped on the shooter with a scream. The sudden shout didn't faze the shooter like Gary had hoped. She was bowled over by the impact but quickly rolled free. Her foot came up in a swing that Gary blocked with his arm. He tried to grab the foot but she pulled away too quickly.

He leaped off the ground and grabbed at her arm but the leafy hat he'd made for camouflage obscured his vision enough that he missed. She swung her hips around and butted him aside. As he rolled on the ground again she sprinted for the car, Gary was up and right behind her. The shooter was a fast son of a bitch but Gary had stronger legs so when they went down the decline to where the car was hidden Gary made a flying tangle around her waist. They down in a pile, rolling across the ground for a bit. She came up with a stone and smacked him in the head. Lights exploded in his head for an instant and he went down.

The sound of the car's hood closing with a thunk brought Gary back to his feet. He charged after the car, reaching through the still open car door to grab at the shooter. The car roared forward with a rattle of flung gravel and Gary found himself rolling on the ground again as the car speed away, holding the ski mask in his hand. He could see long brunette hair whipping in the breeze as she tore across open ground and onto the freeway but her face was turned away. Just before the car disappeared a gun was stuck out the open passenger window. A bulky grenade was mounted on the muzzle. It was pointed in his direction. Gary dived for cover as the gun fired. A moment later there was an explosion somewhere behind him. Gary peered from around his cover. Smoke was rising from just over the crest. She had shot to destroy the railgun. Gary wasn't sure what evidence could have been gleaned from it but the shooter wasn't leaving anything to chance.

Gary called in an all-clear then walked back to the compound. He was surprised at the extent of damage the shooter had done to the building. He wondered who the woman was who had such a hatred of the Ventures. Probably some woman Dr. Venture had propositioned one too many times. There had been no sign of villains 'colors' around so it didn't seem like an Guild authorized operation. Not that it stopped anyone from taking shots at the Ventures if they didn't like them.

With the threat ended Dr. Venture announced that he was taking a nap - to relieve his stress. Triana, looking around at the damages 'heard her father calling,' and like that was gone. Hank sighed. "I'll get the broom."

They knocked off the clean-up around 1 PM. There was still a lot to be done but Gary declared it was time for lunch and leaving Hank to find his own meal Gary went back to his Guard Shack. The blinds were all still down so the room was dim and cool. After the excitement of the morning this seemed nice. Gary washed his face a little, not realizing until he did so how dirty he'd gotten fighting that shooter. He logged a report about it, sent it to OSI headquarters then looked through the database for information on the Blackhearts.

The Blackhearts were an elite all-women assassination squad organized by Molotov Cocktease after the break-up of the Soviet Union. It was thought she did so because her former paymaster in the KGB had lost his position. Cocktease was presumed dead on the word of Brock Samson. Gary looked at the date of Samson's report and was surprised to see that it was dated the same day as the Venture Boys' Prom party. The day he had quit the Monarch. What didn't happen that night, Gary wondered.

It was thought that all the Blackhearts had been killed in an attempt to wipe out the Ventures. The women assassins had posed as escorts for the adults at the party only to suffer some hideous transformation into giant bug creatures and had been slaughtered by the likes of Brock, Shore-Leave, Henchman 21 (retired) - Gary was surprised to see him listed there since he didn't recall taking part in the mop of the bugs. -Dr. Orpheus, The Alchemist and Jefferson Twilight. Gary noted that he wouldn't have wanted to go up against that assembly of bad-assery.

It was thought that if there were any remaining Blackhearts they had scattered following the death of their leader.

The shooter was definitely a Blackheart. The spike high heels were a trademark of the group as were the black jumpsuits and red hearts over their left nipple. His earlier report was noted.

"What a way to go! Not like getting blown up by a bomb."

Gary turned to see 24 glowing faintly in the dark. "What do you mean?"

"If you're going to get killed I think I'd like to be killed but some hot chick. Kind of like auto-asphyxiation. You're dying and getting off at the same time. What a rush."

"You're nuts. There's nothing erotic about dying."

"Tell me about it. By the way you never did find out who killed me." 24 seemed to glare at his old friend.

"I tried. I interrogated the boys under torture, I interrogated myself..."

"You dripped water on them. You call that torture?"

"It was the Chinese Water Torture - I thought it worked." Gary ended sadly.

"What about the others on your list - Dr. Venture, the Moppets, some guy in the shadows?, the Monarch! You gave up after one try."

"I'm sorry. Besides I kind of came to the conclusion that I was as much responsible as anybody for your death. If I had helped you unfasten that seat belt you'd be alive today."

"Or we'd both have been caught in the explosion." 24 reminded him.

"Besides, I can hardly investigate your death anymore. I'm not in the Cocoon, I don't work for the Monarch. He's not going to let me poke around for no good reason."

"Appeal to the Guild. They can make you a special investigator, give you a pass so you can come and go. It would be legal and the Monarch couldn't do anything about it because you're representing the Guild.

"All right, all right. I'll do it. It's not like I don't have a million other things on my plate. What's one more. Hey, if I find out who kill you does that you stop haunting me?"

"I don't know. There's no manual for being a ghost. Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"No! No! Though not having invisible friends to talk to might be a healthy thing..."

"I can take a hint" 24 declared and disappeared.

Gary shook his head then wrote out on a slip of paper "Find 24's killer."

"I have a name!" 24 was back.

"You do?" Gary was surprised by the thought, then embarrassed by the thought because, of course 24 had a name, just like he had a name, even when he was Henchman 21. "You never told me."

"Sure I did, maybe a dozen times. You just weren't listening."

"Well, I'm listening now."

"It's Bernard. Bernard Schmitt. Now that I'm not longer a henchman I think I'd like to be called by my name."

"OK, Bernard. Or can I call you Bernie?"

"I hate Bernie!" The ghost of 24 complained.

"Right, Bernard."

"Now were you going to make a call to your girlfriend?"

"I thought you couldn't read minds.

"Who's reading minds? You were talking about it just before I appeared."

"I'm pretty sure I wasn't." But 24 - Bernard - was already gone. Still - he had meant to call.

Kim had just snuck back into the convent of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows and stashed her camo coveralls. She was miffed at losing the railgun. She had worked a long time to steal it out of the Blackheart's advanced weapons locker. It hadn't worked quite a well as she'd like but it was pretty fun watching it chew up parts of the Venture Industries headquarters. She was beginning to realize that the rumors among the villainous grapevine that the Ventures were hard to kill was true. They were a painfully incompetent group but had some kind of insane luck protecting them from their own worst failings.

The security guy was damn good, though, to have circled around behind her like that. Clearly if she was ever going to get to Hank Venture she was going to have to get him out of the way first. She was already working on a plan for that when when the phone in the hall rang.

She debated answering it. She really wanted to wash the dirt and twigs out of her hair before any one noticed it. It was the phone she has given the number to Gary's, but it was too early for Gary to call. Then again he hadn't called in a few days and that had begun to worry Kim. She kind of missed the big lunk.

Just in case it was Gary she race out into the hall and picked up the phone.

"Kim!" Gary said on hearing her voice. "I'm so glad I got hold you you. The last time I called some old Russian woman answered.

Molotov! That explains why he hadn't called. "To-night, 9 ish, the same place."

"No, wait, Kim!" he started explaining that he wanted to have a proper date. Kim, for her part, was nervous about staying out in the hall so long on the phone. Someone could notice and the trainees weren't supposed to use the phone. But the longer Gary talked the stranger Kim felt. When Gary stumblingly said he loved her Kim felt a chill run down her spine. Lots of guys had said they loved her when all they really meant was they wanted to bed her. In fact she couldn't really recall any guy ever saying he loved her before who had meant it. But Gary... The guy just didn't have it in him to lie. And the way he stammered said this was something difficult for him to say. The idea of having someone actually in love with her frightened Kim. She didn't know how to handle it. But, too, the idea of forgetting the Ventures for an evening, just doing the ordinary things she hadn't done in a couple years. Just being with a guy who could make her laugh.

"I'd like that," she answered quietly and hung up.

Dinner and a movie, she thought as she grabbed a towel and headed for the showers. What an unexpected way to end the day.


	7. Chapter 7

Having talked Kim into going on the date, Gary realized that he had another problem. He didn't have anything nice to wear. His years as a henchman had never called for a suit and tie, And since it would be a few more days before his first OSI paycheck he didn't have enough money for both the date and to buy a new suit. He spent some time pacing the guard shack wondering what to do. Dare he raid Broc Samson's closet? Besides being totally wrong, there was the likelihood that nothing would fit.

His eyes turned to the bag at the bottom of the closet. Inside was his graduation suit, His mother had bought it years ago. He'd worn it once but had carried it every where with him because his mother had always impressed on him the need to have a good, dark suit for weddings and funerals. He pulled the suitcase out and dug through it to the pile at the bottom. He shook out a shiny, dark polyester suit. It was massvely wrinkled. He tried on the coat. Surprisingly, it fit. Not well, but then it hadn't fit well the other time, either. Only then it was loose across the shoulders and tight around the waist. Now it was tight above and, if not loose, then at least less tight below.

Now where was he going to find an iron?

Gary wandered over to the Residence. His stomach churned when he saw Dean. The clone Dean. But he forced himself to ignore that and talk to him in a normal voice. Dean not only knew where an iron was but offered to iron Gary's suit. Watching him setup the ironing board, spread out the coat, spritz it down for ironing Gary couldn't help but think of the old line - some day Dean was going to make someone a great wife. He was instantly embarrassed by the thought. There was nothing about Dean to suggest he was gay. But with no mother in the house the boys had had to learn off the domestic skills that Gary had left for his mom. That was all.

"So what's the big occasion?" Dean asked and taken by surprise, Gary answered truthfully. "I'm taking my date to see a movie."

"You're going to a movie? Can I come?"

"It's a date."

"Oh, right. I could ask Triana to come along. Then it would be a double date!"

Rather than say that Triana would never go on a date, single or double, with Dean Venture, Gary tried to explain that this was supposed to be a romantic date and not the sort of thing for double dates. But Dean wasn't listening he already had his two-way communicator out and tuning in Triana's number. Triana must have been screening her calls because she did not answer. The two-way communicator, made in the 60s by Jonas Venture, Senior, used an analog tuner control to change contact numbers.

"I know, I'll call Gloria," Dean fiddled with his communicator again.

"Who's Gloria?" Gary asked.

"Oh she's this great girl I meet earlier this week, when you took us to the mall. She loves Giant Boy Detective, too. I gave her my email and we've been chatting ever since." Gary remembered the mousy little girl Dean had been talking to. Security threat? No, Dean meeting her was entirely too random for her to have been a plant. Gary cut his reflexive thought off in its track.

"Look, I'm sure Gloria is a nice girl but this is not going to be a double date."

"Why not?"

Gary thought quickly for an answer, then realized it was staring him in the face. "Because if I let you come along Hank will find out and then he'll want to come along, and he doesn't have a girlfriend. And, no, Dermott doesn't count. Especially since he's a boy."

"Maybe Gloria has a friend..."

"Dean, I want this to be just a quiet night between me and my gal so we can get to know each other better. Besides we're going to see a chick-flick. I doubt that you would care for it."

"A chick-flick? Oh-." He handed Gary the pressed coat. Gary tried it on. He looked at himself in the full length mirror in the boys' closet and admired what he saw. He fluffed his coat and practiced say "Bond, James Bond."

"So, are you going to have sex with her, Mr. Double-Oh-Ought?" Dean asked as his pressed the pants.

"We already did that. I'm trying to get to know her better."

"You had sex with her? But you're not even married!" Dean's shock. "What would Brock say?"

"I imagine that Brock has had a lot of sex with woman he's not married to."

"But, but - it's immoral."

"Dean a moment ago you were wondering if we were going to have sex and now you're shocked to find out that we already have. What gives?"

Dean looked at him blankly. Gary had noticed that look a couple times now, when the boys had said something incongruous. It was almost like they were were flipping between personalities, one what was smart and almost with it and the other naive and almost retarded. They were strange kids.

Because Kim couldn't get away from her work early they went to the movie first. Shopton tended to roll up the carpet early and the theater was one such place. The movie they had agreed on was called "He's Dead to Me," a comedy about a girl who falls in love the Undead. There were some big laughs, but also unexpected shocks and gory bits. Kim thought it was great movie, which was all Gary had been hoping for. When they'd first got to the theater Kim had been kind of frisky, trying to make out with him in the darkened room but as the movie got going she had settled down. When they left she was holding on to him tightly, but was talking only about the movie.

The restaurant they went to was out of town somewhat, an old roadhouse that had remained in business since Prohibition. They found a large padded booth towards the rear. It was funny how they both wanted to sit with their backs to a wall. Gary, from years of watching gangster movies knew that hit men always tried to come up from behind. A back to the wall and there was no behind to come up. If he had known that Kim made the decision for the same reason he might have wondered more about her employer - United Conflict Resolution Systems.

They ordered drinks and sat back to watch the band play. When the band began playing a slow number Gary took Kim out to the dance floor. He didn't know much about dancing. It wasn't something henchmen had much experience with. But he figured he could fake a slow dance. When she laid her head on his shoulders he was about as much in heaven as the first time they crawled into the back of Brock's car.

Kim remembered when she had gone to dances and parties all the time. It had been like this. It felt good to have a strong arm around her, claiming her. It make her want to jump his bones even more but it also made her want to have more long, leisurely evening when nothing mattered but having a good time with a likeable guy. You didn't get to do that when you were a Blackheart. Men were not allowed in a Blackheart's life. They were a distraction, a source of weakness. Molotov Cocktease had made that clear from the start. Men were to be used. Sex was merely a tool for getting at the target. Kim liked sex. And she had used sex a time or two to get what she wanted but she liked sex with guys she liked, like this lug, Gary. Blachearts had sex with anyone so long as it advanced the mission. Kim couldn't see doing some creepy old man for "the mission." It was a sticking point for her continuing to be a Blackheart. Eventually she would have to prove her ability at seduction. She wasn't looking forward to that.

When the song was over they went back to their table. While their waiter laid out the plate of appetizers Kim smiled at Gary and told him, "For someone who can't dance, you do a pretty good job of not stepping on my feet."

"That's not a very nice thing to say."

"Oh, come on, it was a compliment!" Kim laughed. "You would not believe the number of guys who claimed to be great dancers who walked all over my feet. There have been times when I wished they made were steel-toed pumps. I was complimenting you, you big lug."

"Oh." Gary still wasn't sure about it being a compliment. "Dances. I guess a pretty girl like you have been to lots of dances."

"Not lately, but back in high school, yeah, I went out a lot. You?"

"Nah. I was a nerd. A nerd's nerd."

"Really? Were you a Star Wars nerd, or Star Trek? LOTR, or BG? Don't tell me you were a LIS fan because that would be so gay."

"What's gay about Lost in Space? When Penny Robinson get her breasts in the third season that was so hot. At least to other 12 year old boys."

"That Professor Smith, though, he was such a pedophile." Kim replied.

"Danger, Danger, Will Robinson. Pedophile at twenty paces!" Gary intoned in a mechanical voice.

Kim started laughing so hard she had to put down her drink and cover her mouth. "You were a nerd!" she said.

"Takes one to know one."

"Does not," Kim repled. "I knew nerds because I hung out with the Goth crowd for a while. That Goth crap is kind of role-playing but I was mostly into music. Techno stuff. The Goths could understand that unlike most of the rest of the school body."

They had come to the last appetizer and argued over who should have it. Gary insisted on Kim having the last piece while Kim argued that a big guy like Gary needed the extra protein. As the debate grew stale, Gary a knife and cut it in half.

Kim had grown distracted as they had argued. As she picked up her piece she casually mentioned, "Don't look, but there's a man over there who keeps staring at us."

"Really?" Gary picked up his knife again and polished it on his napkin. While admiring the polish afterwards he was lookinig past the knife at the table Kim had indicated. There was a man there, seated by himself. He was wearing a brown suit. Gary studied his face intensely but it didn't register as anyone he knew.

What would Brock Do, Gary wondered in a situation like this?

"Kim, why don't you go powder your nose," he suggested.

"Why, so you go over there and beat him up?"

"No, I don't want to make a scene. I just want to see who he's really watching. If he watches you go to the Ladies room that tells me he's watching you."

"More like, if he doesn't watch me go to the Ladies room he's dead or gay."

Kim got up and sashayed away. Her hips were swinging so hard Gary wondered if she was going to throw her back out. It took him a minute to remember to watch their spy and not her fanny. The man had wasn't watching the show Kim was putting on.

Gary got up and walked over to the other table. He pulled out a chair and sat down without asking. "How are things in the Cocoon?" he asked. Gary had finally recognized the man as he got closer.

"21, is that really you?"

"My name's Gary, 57." He said the man's number to rub in the fact that he was a man, not a number. "I'm not a henchman any more. So what brings you here? Monarch send you out to spy on me?"

"No! It's my birthday. The boss gave me some leave to have a little celebration."

"By yourself? That's kind of boring?"

"OK, the Missus sent me out to pick up some feminine products. It's her time of the month. And I thought I'd take advantage of the situation to have a decent supper for once."

"That's Dr. Mrs. The Monarch to you."

"What do you care, you quit, remember?"

"Always respect authority. Where's your shopping bag?" Gary asked it casually but he still wasn't buying it.

Reluctantly 57 raised a plastic bag from a near-by drugstore. Gary took it from him and looked inside. There was an assortment of tampons and sanitary napkins. "You forgot her lavender douche." He gave it back to the henchman. "Why were you staring at us?"

"I thought I recognized you but I had never seen you without your mask so I couldn't be sure. I didn't realize I was staring so hard."

"Is the Monarch still screaming about my perfidy?"

"Your what?"

"Perfidy. Has he gotten over my quitting."

"Oh, that." 57 took a sip of water and licked his lips. "Yeah, I guess. I haven't heard a rant about that in a week."

"Shame about 130."

"Yeah."

Gary looked to see if Kim had returned yet. She hadn't. "Look, 57, I kind of departed on short notice," Gary leaned in conspiratorially, "so I didn't have time to clear out my stuff. Do you have any idea if its still there?"

57 vividly recalled the bonfire they had had. "Yeah, it's all still there."

" 'Cause I'd like to get it back. I was wondering - we go back a long way. I've covered for you from time to time. I want to call in that favor."

"Uh huh..."

"I wonder if you can sneak my stuff out of the Cocoon. Here's a number you can call when you get it out and I'll come around and pick it up. No one will be the wiser and the next time you come around henching the Ventures I'll go easy on ya."

"I don't know that the Monarch has any plans for attacking any time soon..."

"He's always planning something. I'm just saying, do this thing for me and I'll owe you one the next time we meet."

Gary watched 57's eyes as he considered the offer. 57 was a good poker player, something Gary didn't know since cards was never one of his things. "Sure, I can do it." he said. "It'll take me a couple days to sneak everything out. Then I'll call and you can pick it up."

"Great. You're a brick, 57. I knew I could count on you." Gary scribbled out the number for his OSI cellphone. He'd have to remember to plug it in the charger later. Since working at the Venture's he'd used their wrist two-way for everything but he didn't want this call coming up with a Venture ID. He got up, shook hands and went back to his table.

Kim arrived moments later. Gary didn't consider that she'd been waiting and watching his conversation with 57. It wasn't because she suspected Gary of double-dealing, but it was something trained into her by the Blackhearts. Watch and observe. Watch and observe.

"So, who was he watching?" She asked as she slid into her seat.

"He was an old friend from my former place of employment. He didn't realize it was me. We talked for a moment. He's OK."

Kim looked towards the table and saw that 57 had already left. "Sure you didn't threaten to break a leg?"

"Nah. Fif- Fred is a good friend." Their waiter must have been watching as well because he arrived just them with the main course.

"God, I'm hungry!" Kim exclaimed as she cut off a piece of her steak. "I was busy all day yesterday and didn't get a change for more than a snack."

"With United Conflict Resolution Systems?"

"Yeah," Kim mumbled through another piece of steak. "They sent me out on a mission yesterday. Just back-up support but it turned out to be a whole day of running around. Man, I was bushed."

"I didn't realize that arbitration was that strenuous."

"Arbitration?" Kim, for a moment had forgotten her cover story. The target had run and stayed ahead of the team for most of the day. "Well, you know, paperwork. Running off to make copies, get stuff notarized. Lots of negotiations." She smiled, hoping that he wouldn't pry any deeper. He was nodding sympathetically.

"I've been pretty busy, too. Maintenance at the place has been pretty slack. I've had to run all over the place looking for what needs to be replaced then try to get my tightwad boss to cough up the money for repairs. You know, I quit my last job because I wanted to make a difference in this world. And I really feel like I am. I kind of got thrown in over my head but I'm swimming. I see real progress in what I do. Quitting the Mon- my old boss was the smartest thing ever did."

Kim studied him for a moment, surprised by this declaration. She wasn't entirely sure that Arching Hank Venture was the smartest thing she ever decided to do. She had made a lot of bad decisions in her life. It made her feel small to sit next to someone who felt so good about himself.

"What made you pick me up at Nightingales last week?" Gary asked.

"Me? I thought you picked me up." She laughed.

"I've never flirted with a girl in my life before. You're the one that started talking to me."

"I did not ... oh, wait,so I did. You looked cute and so perplexed because we kept stepping the same way to get out of the other's way."

"Yeah, I remember. And I thought you were a stripper."

"But you blushed when I told you I wasn't. I think that when I knew you were all right. Most of the dicks I've run into would have refused to admit that they were wrong."

"I gather you've run into a lot of them."

"Yeah," Kim reluctantly admitted. The last year in school I started hanging out with some of the rich kids. I was mesmerized by the life-style. Fancy dinners, elaborate parties and then the drugs. At first I thought I was doing it just to fit in but soon I became hooked. Stole from friends. They didn't seem to mind, probably because they were stealing from their parents already. Then one day I staggered home about 4 am. I'd spent half the night looking for a hit. I come in and the light comes on in the living room. I thought I was going to catch hell from my mother, but everyone was there. My parents, my brother and sisters, some of my friends, even an aunt I barely know. It was an intervention. Did you ever see the show Intervention?"

Gary hadn't.

"It was just like that. Every one was teary eyed. They read letters telling me how much they loved me and didn't want to see me die. I was crying. And to be honest I was so embarrassed that things had come to this that I wanted to die.

"So I did the rehab. That was a rough time. I think I cried constantly for the first month. By then the coke was out of my system but I still craved the stuff. Group therapy talked me out of that. And I've been clean since. For a while I after I finished the rehab I hooked up with a religious group that specialized in post-rehab therapy. I spent most of a year with them. Then one day a month ago I was kneeling for 6 am prayers when I realized that I was not cut up for praying at all hours of the day and night. I used to come in from raves at 6 am. So I came back here. Hooked up with United, then met you. I hadn't been with a man for over a year.

"So it wasn't my charming self, after all"

"No, that's not true. I mean, maybe the first time, but I wouldn't have asked you to call if I didn't think this was the right thing to do." All that was left on her plate was the bone from her steak. "I know you wanted to get to know me better, and there it is. I thought about it and decided that you ought to know just what kind of a girl you're hooking up with. You must hate me by now."

Gary was disquieted by the extent of her wild past. Aside for the {very} occasional hooker he hadn't had any sex in the last ten years. He had been as desperate to hook up with Kim as she had been. The drugs and stealing was disturbing but as a former henchman not really no worse than anything he had done. He wondered if he should tell her his story? He wondered just what sort of a response she was waiting for. He'd seen a lot of movies where people make big confessions like this but there was no consistent response to guide him here. And the "What Would Brock Do" mantra didn't help here because would never listen to such a long confession. He was on his own here.

"So what do you want for dessert?" He asked.

"Dessert?" Kim wasn't sure what she was hearing.

"Yeah. The Hot Fudge Creampuff looks very good.

"I'd put on five pounds just looking at it." Km looked at him. "You don't mind that I'm a junkie?"

"Ex-junkie. That's all in the past, that's good enough for me. Both of us have made breaks with our past and I think - as long as we are good to each other we ought to leave the past behind."

Kim thought 'you naive bastard.' She blushed because Gary's sincerity was more than she deserved. But she wasn't going to let it go either. She lay down the desserts menu she had been looking at. "I know what I want for dessert, and it isn't on this menu!"

Now it was Gary's turn to blush.

Later, laying in Gary's arms Kim considered her future. Molotov Cocktease had always insisted men were tools, easily mislead by sex. A true mercenary, she argued would do anything to fulfill their contract,even if it meant sleeping with some stranger to get information out of him. While Kim had slept with a lot of men, and who knows how many total strangers when she was a drug addict (her memory was fragmented the last couple months before the Intervention) she didn't like the idea now. Where Cocktease felt that sex was no different from shaking hands, Kim felt it was something deeply personal. If a man was going to invade her body it was going to be someone she at least approved of.

So she had been putting off one of the required demonstrations of the Blackhearts - seducing a stranger and stealing something from him. Gary, thought... Cocktease didn't know about him. So if she could make it appear like she was seducing Gary she could pass Cocktease's requirement. And once she graduated from the Blackhearts academy she would be free to Arch Hank Venture the way he deserved to be. But would Gary go along with her idea? He seemed willing to do about anything for her, including forgetting her past. Maybe he'd be willing to go a little it further and do some role-playing. He could be Luke to her Leia, or something.

She rehearsed her story a couple times then nudge him awake. Yes, her future looked bright, with Hank Venture centered in her sights.


	8. Chapter 8

Gary was still floating on sunshine following his date with Kim. He was up early. The sun had barely cracked the horizon as he put in a long run. He felt full of energy. On the back side of the compound, while skirting the woods near the fence he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He immediately doved for cover, then survailled the area. Something large and green was disappearing into the deeper woods. Triana's walking head of Broccoli? he wondered, jumped up and chased after it but after a couple minutes he had to admit that he had lost the trail. He made a mental note to mention this to the doctor - again. Was this one of the Doctor's experiments escaped from where ever he was keeping it. Or was it something else.

The rest of his run was uneventful. He was dismayed to see the extent of damage from yesterday's attack by the shooter with the railgun. There was going to be a lot of repair work done there and he knew who was going to be doing all that work. A henchmen's life was full of woe - even an ex-henchman's!

After a shower Gary wandered over to the Ventures residence for breakfast. Naturally no one else was up. He fiddled with the coffee maker but couldn't get the sine waves to synch. There was a ten second strobe that he didn't like. The coffee, though, seemed brisk, caffeinated, and not too harsh on the stomach.

Rummaging through the refrigerator he found some seemingly wholesome bacon in the freezer, eggs in the refrigerator and processed cheese-like product in one of the cupboards. OK - omelets. He put the bacon to thaw in a shallow pan filled with warm water while he scoured the skillet that had been left in the sink since the day before. It struck him that what the Ventures needed wasn't so much a bodyguard as a nanny or housekeeper. Maybe one of those cute Swedish au pairs with a Bohemian sense to nudity...

He was just beginning to lay the fried bacon out on some paper towels to drain when Hank wandered into the kitchen. He was blinking sleepy eyes as he grabbed one of the strips without asking.

Gary was tempted to swat his hand with the hot spatula but the day was too grand for pettiness.

"Hi, Gary," Hank yawned. "Whatcha cooking?"

"Omelets. What one?"

"Would I!"

"Then set the table. What's the ETA on your brother?"

"Dean! He kept me up half the night working on his book. tap-tap-tap-tap. I'd rather have a dentist fill a cavity than listen to that racket."

"I know the feeling. Of course the Guild dentist wasn't licensed and had a novel approach to pain management."

Hank paused, his hands full of plates. "Gary. Why do I know what it feels like to have a cavity filled when I don't have any fillings in my mouth." He opened his mouth and pulled back his lips to show what he meant.

Gary blanched and thought swiftly. Oh how he wished Dr. Venture was stuck answering these questions. "Vivid imagination I guess. You probably watched the movie, Marathon Man, on TV at some point. That kind of puts people off dentists."

"Anyway, I'm going to have my revenge," Hank gloated as he spread the plates around the table. "I'm writing my own tell-all book. It's going to be called 'My Brother - The Wuss'. Clever title, huh?"

"It could use some work." Gary had a sinking feeling that he would never be able to nip this book writing business.

"Mommy?"

"No, Dean, it's just me," Gary said as the other Venture boy came into the kitchen. He was wearing over-sized boxers and a T-shirt from the Rusty Venture Summer Camp project. Lime green with "Have a Scientastic Day!" written on it in purple. Dr. V's color sense clearly was in need of help.

"I dreamed about my mother last night."

"When was that, nerd? You keep me up all night!" Hank said. "Forks or spoons" he asked Gary, holding both in his hand.

"Forks. What was your dream about?" Gary worried that Dean might be remembering more of his time inside the clone chamber.

"She was short, and soft, sweet smelling with long blonde hair that hung over one eye. And she wore a trench coat." Dean sounded confused as he recalled his dream.

"That sounds more like Lauren Bacall mixed in with Humphrey Bogart. You sure you weren't watching "The Big Sleep" last night?"

"No."

"What did she do?"

"She just held me and told me that everything was all right."

"I like you mom better then mine. Mine took fifty bucks not to press charges after the Monarch kidnaped me. She should have held out for at least five grand." Gary carried the skillet over to the table and cut his first omelet in two and slide halves onto Hank and Dean's plates. He started making another omelet for himself.

"Gary, could you take me into town today," Dean asked.

"What's up?"

"Hot date with Gloria?" Hank leered. Gloria was the Giant Boy Detective fan Dean had meet recently.

"No. I want to go to the library." He took a bite of omelet. "I want to use their computers to research some stuff. Pop's blocked all sites on the Internet that contains information about the Ventures on our computers at home. I need to use the library's computer to research our family tree."

"I'm sure your father had good reason for doing that," Gary replied, hoping to discourage Dean .

"He says its all about security and not giving our enemies information that could let them attack us, but that's bogus. I'm not giving out family secrets, I'm just trying to read the same information all our enemies already can read. I don't know why he's so upset about my writing a book. I'd think he's be happy I was making something of myself."

"You know, I wrote a tell-all book," Gary began. "about the Monarch. That didn't go as well as I expected. If I hadn't published it under a pseudonym I wouldn't be here now to tell you about it. And if the Monarch ever finds out who wrote that book... Well, I guess that would be two reasons why he'd want me dead."

"Is the other because you kissed Dr. Mrs. The Monarch?" Hank asked, his mouth full of egg.

"Three. That would be three reasons he would want me dead. The other reason was for quitting his organization. The Monarch apparently considers resignation on par with treason." he finished up. "Hank, did you want to go to the library in town today?"

"Nah. It's just full of books."

"There might be some cute girls there."

"You mean old librarians!"

Gary didn't like letting the boys separate. It made it hard to protect both of them but he figured there wasn't much that could get at Hank on the compound.

"Triana was telling me about something called Google Docs," Dean said, a fork poised before his mouth, "which would let me write stuff and store it on a cloud or something. And that I'd have to have my book in electronic format, anyway, to sell it. Do you know anything about it?"

"No. I pretty much limit my Internet browsing to porn."

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself," Triana drifted into the kitchen. She was wearing sweat pants and a T under her father's old robe.

"Every day," Gary answered, turning back to the eggs to hide his blushing. "I suppose you want something as well? Why is it that my cooking can raising everyone but Dr. Venture? I'm taking Dean into town to use the library, want to come along?"

"Yeah, their old man has been hogging the computer so Dean has to work on his manuscript using that old typewriter. And then pages keep turning up missing. I think Dr. Venture is trying to sabotage Dean's biography." Triana got out a plate and silverware and set herself a place at the table. She finished off the bacon. "I told him he could use Goggle Docs and then his father couldn't read what he's written until its published."

Gary told the boys to meet him at the Hanger at 10 AM and he'd take them to the library. When the time came he was surprised to see Hank along with Dean and Triana. Hank had decided to come so he could visit a hobby shop near by and look at some of their plastic dinosaur models. Triana was going to show Dean how to use Google Docs and help with his on-line searches. Gary hoped the library subscribed to Villainous Times, a celebrity magazine for super-villains and super-scientists. It would give him something to read while the others were doing their thing.

Triana hopped into the back seat with Hank and Dean, much to Gary's surprise, especially after he had warned her about possible radiation leaking from the nuclear pile powering the X-13. She and Dean were pouring over the pages he had written the night before. And talking in quiet but excited tones about them. Triana was so absorbed in Dean's manuscript that she didn't even notice when he lifted his arm and laid on across the back of the seat. She just scooted in closer so they could share the pages easier. Gary just raised his eyebrows and concentrated on driving.

Still, when they got to the library and Gary had found a place to park the behemoth of a car, he called her back as the boys entered the building.

"I've been thinking," he began."

"Always a dangerous precedent," she quipped.

"I've been thinking," he began again, "that there may be something to what your friend, the Mast - your father's friend, The Master, had said."

"That I should learn to be a magic-user?"

"No, that if you stay around here you _will_ marry Dean."

"Don't be ridiculous. I already told you, there is no way I would ever marry Dean." She told him angrily.

"He had his arm around you on the way to town."

"No he didn't."

"I saw it in the rear view mirror. He first put it along the back of the seat, then later let it slip down and touch your arm."

"Why does that thing even have a rear view mirror. It's not like you can see anything though that nuclear pile in the trunk." She said, crossing her arms defensively. "Besides, what's it to you?"

"Nothing. You seem to make Dean happy. And when Dean's happy, then I'm happy. But does Dean make you happy, that's the question? As a former henchman I know something of the feeling of doing something you don't enjoy. And, maybe, it's because I've been thinking about relationships a lot lately. My girlfriend..."

"Gary, you go to that strip club every night in Brock's car. I don't know who you see in there but it can't be the foundation of a relationship." She turned to walked away.

"Milady and I are very serious about each other, and she's not a stripper. Look, I'm just saying - this Master of yours said that if you continued to hang around the Ventures you'd end up married to Dean. When you came back last week you were all "keep away from me, Dean" and today you let him place his arm around you. I think ol' Scratch, or whatever he is, is on to something. The Ventures are like a vacuum leak in the universe. The closer you get to them the more you'll be sucked into their - universe."

"Won't. Happen!" Triana declared, speaking the two words like individual sentences.

"Fine." Gary considered for a moment what else he might say but concluded that Triana had stopped listening to him. And besides why was he trying to manage her life. She was an adult and he had warned her. Anything else was up to her.

She had walked away maybe ten feet when he asked, "anything I can get for you while we're in town? Cigarettes..."

Triana stopped, and walked back to the beefy henchman. In a resigned voice she said, "nicoderm patches. I realized last night that I was down to one packet of cigs. I'd gone through the whole carton you got for me in a week. I'm not going to be a slave to tobacco. There, does that make you happy?"

"You had started smelling like an ash tray but I wasn't going to mention it." Gary had been leaning against the X-13. Now he pushed himself off and said. "I got a couple small errands. Tell the boys I should be back in an hour."

Nothing beats one's first paycheck, especially for someone living on pocket lint for a week. Gary had found an envelope in the day's mail addressed to him from OSI. Inside was his first paycheck. How he happily stood in the slow moving line at the bank, knowing that he'd soon be rolling in some dough.

"Gary, we have to talk," a deep, manly voice spoke from behind him.

He swirled around. "You!" He sneered at the woman standing in line behind him. She was of average height, slender, dressed in a pink Chanal dress with a tiny pillbox hat stuck on her head. Over-sized sunglasses obscured her face. "What are you doing here? Are you following me?"

"Gary, Gary. I'm here for the same reason you are - cashing a check. It's payday at the Cocoon and I'm picking up money for the henchmen." She waved a check in front of him. It was a large, business class check, over-printed with hundreds of monarch butterflies. Monarch Enterprises was embossed in the corner along with a Cayman Islands post office box number. He even caught the size of the check and dividing by the number of henchmen the Monarch normally kept around realized that his old employer was shorting his men - again.

"You're dead to me," he said, turning to face forward.

"The corpse looks pretty lively if you ask me," Dr. Girlfriend persisted.

"That can be arranged."

"Come on, Gary, it was just a joke. And I had to go along to keep the Monarch from killing you."

"I'd like to see him try." Gary pouted. "If you'll excuse me, I have to open a bank account." The cashier gave him some forms to fill out.

Meanwhile Dr. Mrs. The Monarch went to another window and collect her payroll. This involved counting out a lot of bills and a couple rolls of coins. She tucked the money inside a purse. The purse was slung from a long strap which she hung from her shoulder. It was as if she had never heard MacGruff, the Crime dog lecture about purse-snatchers.

She found herself once again behind the beefy ex-henchman as they were leaving the building.

"Gary, things are not what they seem. If you would just give me a minute I'll explain everything."

She lead the way to a small café a block from the bank. There were tables outside in the morning sun., They took one and when a waitress came around Gary ordered a sticky bun and hot cocoa while Dr. Mrs. The Monarch ordered a cup of coffee, black. When Gary got his order he tore the bun into small pieces and dipped them in the cocoa. He slurped in the soaking bread noisily.

"Gary I've been thinking about what you said that other night..."

"When we kissed."

"When you kissed me," she corrected. "It takes a lot of nerve to open your heart like that..."

"While sitting on top The Monarch," you mean.

"That was awkward, but, no, I mean opening up your heart to me at all." She took off her sunglasses and looked Gary directly in the eyes. Liars aren't supposed to be able to look at other people right in the eyes but Gary had noticed that the best liars, in fact, were very good about looking at people straight in the eyes, without flinching, while telling the biggest lies. So he hardened his heart from her look of sincerity.

"We can smoke out here, can't we?" she asked.

"The ash trays would say yes," Gary told her. "Doesn't the Monarch let you smoke in the Cocoon anymore."

"Sadly, no. He gets a better rate on the Guild's medical plan if he makes the Cocoon a smoke-free environment. As if any of us are going to live long enough to die of lung cancer." She reached inside her purse to bring out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. Gary noticed a small, fat snake coiled up around the wad of bills in her purse.

"Is that a Viet Namese two-step viper?"

She paused to light up and nearly inhaled the cigarette with a single drag. "Thran is a dear pet. And does a much better job of protecting the Monarch's money than a phalanx of henchmen. No one has ever lived to steal the Monarch's money."

"How do you keep him quiet?"

"Professional secret."

"Spit tobacco juice up his nose? 'Cause I've heard that hypnotizes them until a shock wakes them up."

"We can't keep anything from you, Gary. That's why I want you to come back to the Cocoon."

"I thought the Monarch was trying to kill me."

"No, that was just a misunderstanding." Dr. Girlfriend fished out another cigarette from her packet and lit it off the end of the first. "The truth is, the Cocoon hasn't been the same without you. We promoted Number 7 to take your place but he hasn't been working out. He's good with the paperwork and stuff but discipline..." She took another puff. "He's too soft hearted. Already I can see the henchmen are getting fat and lazy. We need you, Gary, You had the drive to make the Cocoon great. With you back at the Cocoon we could do great things, things beyond just Arching Dr. Venture, maybe even - world conquest!

"Besides," she paused. "I can control the Monarch. He's a regular pussycat in my hands. He'll never ever bother you."

"That didn't work out so well for number 130."

"That? That happened before I even knew what he was planning. Believe me if I had known he intended to kill 130 I would have stopped him." Dr. Mrs. The Monarch was looking at him directly in the eyes again. She looked so sincere and honest. She looked incredibly kissable.

"Why the old Dr. Girlfriend costume? Afraid to show your boobies to the world?" Gary asked, trying to be as hateful as he could. He could feel himself being lured into her offer.

"There's a time and place for everything. This wasn't the time for being Dr. Mrs. The Monarch."

"And you've talked this over with The Monarch. He's on board with my coming back."

"I'll smooth everything out before you get there. I don't want to see you get hurt," she said.

"You mean by anyone other than The Monarch."

"No, not even by him. Especially not by him." She toyed with her cigarette for a moment, stubbed it out and light up another one. "Gary," she finally began, "I think about what you said back there all the time. You touched me in ways I never thought I'd be touched..."

"On the lips?" Gary smirked.

"Please, I'm trying to be serious here. This isn't easy for me. - No one has ever just said they loved me before. Usually they want something else as well.

"And you're good with that-"

"Yes, because usually what they want is what I want as well - power, respect, the ability to reshape the world.

"We both know you're not leaving The Monarch so why are you telling me this?"

"No one has ever loved me for just myself. Gary, I feel conflicted about this. I - Look, The Monarch is going to have some henchmen outside the "Nightin ales" tonight, waiting for you. Don't go there tonight. I don't want you to get hurt."

"Maybe I want to."

"Gary, you can't beat them all."

"Sure I can. I trained them. I know all their weaknesses."

She sighed, issuing a long stream of smoke from her nose. "Gary, please. You can't beat The Monarch at this. There's a little piece of my heart that loves you back. It'll break if you got killed pointlessly like this."

"As opposed to the large piece of my heart that you broke when you laughed in my face." he got up to storm off, but she laid a hand on his and held him back. She looked at him pleadingly, then sighed again and snubbed out her cigarette. She put on her sunglasses and stood up. "I had hoped we could stay as friends. Well... She stretched up and kissed him on the lips. "That was for the friends we were. The next time we meet it will be as enemies." She turned as rapidly walked away.

Gary considered for a moment whether she had been wearing poisoned lipstick. He left money enough for their meal and walked off in the other direction. His thoughts were confused. Had Dr. Girlfriend been hitting on him? Had her talk about loving him meant he had a chance of getting her in the sack? Or did it just mean she'd warn him of plots by the Monarch to kill him? Was there a chance for him and Dr. Girlfriend? Did he really want girlfriend who had tried to kill him?

He was just leaving with his purchases when his OSI cellphone vibrated. It was a message from 57. He had snuck Gary's possessions out of the Cocoon, he said, and wondered where to meet to hand them over. What a stroke of luck, Gary thought, since he was already in town. He texted a convenient location. 57 said he needed some place more private and they agreed on the alley behind the library. If no one ever came to a library, even fewer people hung around the back of one.

Gary walked a few blocks to the hard ware store and bought some rope and bungee cords and a couple of plastic tarps. When you build a nuclear reactor into the back of a car it just doesn't leave a lot of room for luggage. True, there was storage in the front, like in the old VW Beetles, but like the old Beetles, space was small and poorly designed. He'd have to strap most of his gear on the roof or to the fins.

He took a quick peak inside the library, since 57 said he wouldn't be there for an hour. Dean and Triana were at computers. Triana seemed to be transcribing Deans typewritten pages from the day before while Dean was doing Internet searches and making notes. Hank was back from the hobby shop with a large bag of goodies at his feet. He was reading a gaming magazine, or at least looking at the pictures. There were only a few other people in the library, all of them busy at other stuff. None of them watching the Ventures. Gary felt good about this. He went back outside and sat on the steps. He didn't want to intrude on their quiet time. It was good for the boys to be on their own and not have someone to always fall back on when things got tough or confusing.

After a while sitting virtuously outside got boring and he went inside and looked for a copy of Villainous Times. They were kept behind the Librarian's counter since they were regarded as an immoral influence on children. Lady Pain was on the cover, looking pale in her black corset, stockings and garter belt. She was holding a croup in her hand and looked like she knew which end was which. According to the article she was a rising star in the villainy firmament. Gary decided that her star wasn't the only thing rising.

Inside was an article on the struggle with the Monstroso organization since the disappearance and presumed death of the man mountain. Brock Samson had reported that he and Molotov Cocktease had fallen to their deaths in one of the canyons near the Venture Compound. Gary remembered something Ghengis Khan was supposed to have said. Something about seeing their bodies, or was it the lamentations of 'der wivven'? No, that was Conan the Barbarian. Whatever. According to the article the company's Chief Financial Officer had declared control of the criminal operation, renaming himself The Bankster. Only to have the Chief Operations Office mount a counterclaim under his new name of The Shyster. Law suites were flying regarding the legitimate portion of Monstroso's operation but the real battle was over his covert Guild operations. That depended on the hearts and souls of the henchmen running those operations. Both the Bankster and the Shyster were vying for the minion's loyalty. Judging from the lameness of the two men's names Gary suspected that when the dust cleared some little guy from the mail-room will be discovered to have stuck shivs in the backs of everyone else and become the new Monstroso.

Gary had something of a personal interest in Monstroso since he had been instrumental in helping Bock Samson to foil a plot to take over both Venture Industries and the Monarch's own financial holdings. It was the first time Brock had treated him as an equal, or at least someone close enough to being an equal. It was a good feeling.

He looked at his watch and saw that number 57 should be along anytime now. Gary returned the magazine to the desk and went outside to wait. It wasn't long before 57 came around the corner and waved at him.

"Did you get everything?" Gary asked

"Oh, yeah. It was a piece of cake. Nobody had been in your room since you left. I've got it all bundled up in a van back in the alley." He lead the way around the side of the library to the alley running behind it. A row of stores were on the other side of the alley, mostly two stories high, old rowfronts with apartments over the stories. Dumpsters were strung out along the block. But Gary didn't see those. All he saw was the absence of a van and the presence of four armed henchmen with dart guns pointed at him.

"You bastard." he said evenly. There wasn't any point to recriminations, complaints about how long they'd known each other and pleas for mercy. This was the Guild of Calamitous Intent after all. Betrayal wasn't merely accepted it was almost expected. Gary had looked into 57's eyes and thought he had seen an honest man and a friend. So he had taken a gamble. He'd lost. The question before him wasn't the unfairness of it all but - what would Brock do?

Brock would throw something, most likely his freaking huge knife. Gary didn't have a knife. What did he have? Well, he had 57. And with that Gary grabbed the henchman by the arm and seat of the pants hoisted him into the air and flung him at the other henchmen. At the same time Gary dropped to the pavement and rolled to the scant shelter of one of the dumpsters.

He could hear the _puff-puff-puff_ of the dart guns firing but didn't feel any pricking so he assumed none of the anesthetic dart had hit him. But he couldn't stay here. And he didn't have any kind of weapon. He was going to have to reconsider that unarmed policy if he ever got out of this alive.

Weapon, weapon, he was thinking as he looked around. The four henchmen had been knocked down by 57's fall and were scrambling to their feet. A couple darts stood out of 57 so he wasn't going to be part of the action for a while. But hanging from his belt, not ten feet from Gary was 57's own dart gun. A weapon!

Gary felt around in the dirt where he lay looking for something to throw. He found a chunk of asphalt broke off from a pothole in the alley and washed up over time to the brick wall on the opposite the library. Just the thing.

Gary tossed it long, but not high down the alley. It's clatter as it rolled away from the henchmen pulled their attention off Gary long enough for him to leap from the ground to a groaning 57, rip the dart gun from its anchoring and pop it's load of darts into the confused henchmen.

He got up and threw the empty dart gun away and walked over to the snoring henchmen. He took one of their guns just in case but they all had been hit multiple times. They would be out for hours. He walked back to 57, rolled him over, and considered what to do with the traitor. There were several ways to use the supposedly non-lethal dart gun to kill. A dart in the eye would penetrate straight to the brain, for instance. Death seemed like the appropriate punishment for double-crossing him but Gary had never been big on killing people. He had, of course, but mostly he tried avoiding doing so.

He was still deciding what to do when a bullet sang past his head. He dropped to the ground and pulled 57's body partly over him. He'd barely moved him when 57 jerked a couple times and with a groan stopped breathing. Vaguely Gary heard the gunshots in the background.

Shit! A backup squad! he thought. Normally the Monarch wasn't this thorough in going after people.

Keeping 57's body sheltering him Gary started watching the roof-line of the building across the alley from the library. Soon a henchman stood up with a shiny, nickel-plated .45 automatic. He took his time aiming at Gary. Time enough to Gary to snap off a shot of his own. The hand cannon flew out of nerveless fingers as it exploded. The henchman dropping to the roof with a dart in his eye.

Gary rolled out from under 57 and scooted next to the brick wall. The shooter - if there were any more - would have a hard time getting a bead on Gary here.

He waited for any other members of the back-up team to make their move. A clatter of feet from the end of the alley catch his attention. He snuck a quick glance in that direction and spotted Hank, Dean and Triana standing out in the open at the foot of the alley.

"Gary are you all right?" Triana unwisely shouted.

A henchman popped up from the rooftop and shot at her. Gary nailed him in the cheek. Triana fainted.

"Get in the car!" Gary shouted. "Move! Move!"

"You've got the keys," Hank shouted back.

Shit! Gary dug in his pocket until he found them and tossed them down the alley. He turned back to the roofline just in time to see another shooter stand up. Gary's snapshot missed entirely but the man dropped out of sign without firing so that was a plus.

He looked to see Hank scoop up the keys and with Dean supporting Triana run off to the X-13. He gave them a minute to get to and into the car then, firing the last of the darts in the gun, took off down the alley after them. A couple shots splanged around his feet but the remaining shooter either wasn't very good with a gun or too distracted by the possibility that Gary had more darts left to fire.

Hank was still trying to figure out the controls of the X-13 when Gary doved into it. He pushed the younger man aside and shifted the car into drive. All three kids were in the front seat, which was kind of crowded.

"Back seat! Everybody!" he barked and half pushed Hank over the backrest into the back. Dean tried to push Triana after Hank but the girl was too woozy and shaking with shock to move. "Dean, Go!" Gary told him and he left the girl leaning against the side door post as he scrambled into the back seat.

"What's going on?" Hank asked as Gary drove the X-13 out of the parking lot into traffic. "Are we going to leave all my models in the library?"

"Forget about the toys," Gary snapped. "Can you find any weapons in this thing? I can't imagine your grandfather building an atomic car without a few lethal weapons."

But there were none to be found.

The massive vehicle accelerated slowly but steadily as they went down the road. They were coming up to a stoplight when Gary saw the Monarchmobile in the rearview mirror. "Damn," he swore. "A third team! he must have really wanted me this time!"

Gary downshifted and stepped on the accelerator. The car leaped forward, right through the red light. Honking cars split left and right around the pink leviathan. The Monarchmobile was caught in the traffic jam. That would slow them down for a minute, but the X-13 drove like a truck,. It wouldn't take long for the henchmen to catch up with them.

"Triana! Triana!" Gary called loudly to the still dazed girl. "I need your help right now. You can be sick later. OK?"

"They shot at me!" she said, disregarding Gary's comments. "They shot at me!"

"Welcome to the world of Big Time Science. Now you know what Dean's life has been like," Gary told her, "but I need your help right now! There's a GPS unit in the glovebox. Get it out and try to find the fastest route to a freeway. I think US-757 runs along here somewhere. Can you do that?"

Gary took a corner on four of the car's eight wheels, then a turn in the opposite direction. Triana was first thrown against him and then the door. The boys tumbled in the back as well.

"Buckle up!" he told them. "This is going to be hairy."

Triana had fished the GPS out of the glovebox and was staring at it stupidly as she tried to figure out the controls. Gary had found the unit in the guard shack and had put it in the car on the off chance he'd need it. Pre-planning. It had paid off. Hank was leaning over the seat rest offering suggestions while Dean was huddled in the back seat apparently going catatonic.

"Why are we going on the freeway?" Hank wanted to know. "This thing drives like a barge. The other car will catch up with us in no time.

Gary braked hard as he took another corner. "This thing accelerates slow but the speedometer it mapped out to 180 miles per hour. I'm assuming that's because it can go that fast once it has a chance to accelerate. The Monarchmobile tops out at 120. Given a straight run we'll leave them in our dust."

"Monarchmobile?" Triana echoed. "What kind of dopey name is - oh, The Monarch? Why is he after us?"

"Me. Just me. He didn't like it when I quit. You're just collateral damage."

"Oh, great." Triana had kept working on the GPS while she talked. "Hey, I think I've got what you want." and stuck the device on the windshield. Gary touched the zoom out button and saw that she had, then went back to a normal view.

"Didn't you say the Monarchmobile can fly?" Hank asked in his ear.

"Sit down and buckle up," Gary warned him. "Yes it can but I'm guessing that the Monarch forgot to mention it to his minions. He's kind of sloppy that way. As long as they don't activate the jet engine we've got them beat."

"And if they do?" Triana asked.

Gary was silent for a moment as he dodged around a few slow moving cars. The on-ramp to the freeway was right in front of him now. "They've got maybe 30 minutes of jet fuel, we've got a nuclear reactor. We can outrun them."

"That's your best idea?" she asked. When Gary didn't answer she reached into her pants and pulled out her cellphone.

"What are you doing?" Gary asked.

"I'm calling my dad!"

"What can he do? We're miles away from where ever he is."

"He's a necromancer! I'm sure he can think of something. At least it's a better idea that hoping that those henchmen are poorly trained!"

Gary swerved onto the freeway, plowing between two semis with inches the spare. The trailing truck slammed on its brakes while blowing its horn. Gary continued into the left lane, forcing an RV that had been trying to pass to dodge onto the shoulder. Ahead of him was clear road. He pushed the pedal to the floor and the atomic behemoth slowly pulled ahead.

He had just cleared the lead semi when he heard Triana close her cellphone with a snap. "Of all the Effing times to be unavailable!" she cursed.

"Try calling the Outrider?" Hank suggested. He still hadn't buckled up.

"Over my dead body," Triana said, unaware of the irony. "Can't you call in the OSI?" she asked.

"They won't respond. This is a Guild sanctioned operation."

"But we're here! Aren't they supposed to keep Hank and Dean alive?"

"Fortunes of war. We've got to take care of ourselves."

"You guys are nuts!" she said, crossing her arms and slumping into the corner of the front seat.

The X-13 was running well over a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Gary, tense behind the wheel, was weaving past cars in either lane as he blew past them at twice their own speed. The Monarchmobile has cleared the line of trucks now but were far in the distance. As the X-13's speed mounted their chances of catching up with him grow smaller. Unless they turned on the jet engine for a bit. But as it stood Gary estimated that in 15-20 minutes he'd have enough of a lead that he could pull off at one of the exits without them seeing him. Then they'd be safe to go home.

He must have been watching the Monarchmobile too intently in the rear view mirror because when he looked back ahead again there was no road!

A quick look around showed that they had been climbing a long, gentle slope which just ahead of them disappeared down a grade. A glance at the speedometer showed them going 160 mph. Gary pressed on the brakes, pumping them so that the tires would not lock up on the pavement and start burning. As it was he left eight dashed lines of skidmarks along the freeway.

He had the X-13 just under a hundred as they rounded the crest and started down hill. The car flew through the air for a few feet before landing with a crash on overloaded shocks and squeals of tires. There was a loud bang as one of them exploded. When the car didn't lurch to one side Gary guessed it was one of the back tires. Whatever. As long as he continued to have control of the car it didn't matter.

He pressed down on the accelerator again and was pulling ahead when he saw the Monarchmobile crest the ridge. They hadn't slowed down like he had. Perhaps they were hoping to gain some lost ground that way. Whatever.

In the rear view mirror Gary could see the purplish Monarchmobile sail high into the sky Almost like a ski jumper they soared up, up, up. Soon they would be going down, down, down. The ground would be unforgiving when they hit it.

"Pop the wings!" Gary breathed. "Pop the wings! - Shit!"

The car never transformed into aerial mode. No wings. No jet engine. It tipped on its side and fell. And landed with a loud crumpling of metal. Glass exploded from the windows. A tire broke free of its mounting and bounded across the road, rolling for a quarter-mile before falling on its side. As it was flopping over, leaking aviation fuel hit the muffler and the car exploded into a massive fireball.

"Wow!" Hank exclaimed. "They blowed up real..."

"Shut up!" Gary snapped. "There were people in that car. People who are dead. Show some respect."

"People who were trying to kill us," Hank retorted.

"People just doing their job. They had no personal interest in what they were doing."

"You were telling them to open their wings," Triana stirred herself. "Did you want them to catch up with us?"

"No." Gary paused to figure out just what he meant. He wasn't sure. "I - worked with those guys for years. They're kind of like friends. Yeah, they were trying to kill me but it was like - 'business'. You know, like in the Godfather. I wasn't, like, going to let them kill me, or us, but I didn't want to have to kill them either."

"What about all those bodies back in the alley?" Hank demanded.

"You do what you got to do, OK? I wasn't proud of having to kill them, and most of them aren't dead, only unconscious anyway. Now shut up. All of you - just shut up!"

Gary lets the X-13 coast until its speed was near the speed limit. The GPS unit showed that an exit was coming up and he took it. Wandering around on back roads he made his way back to the Venture Compound. He parked the X-13 in its shed, intending to inspect it in the morning for damage.

Triana took a few steps away from the car before becoming violently ill. Dean, sheafs of paper tucked under one arm held on to her has she bent over to vomit again. He looked pale and his shirt was soaked in sweat but he had avoided throwing up himself - or wetting his pants.

Hank had run off ahead of them, to be the first to tell Dr. Venture about their adventure.

Gary looked at gate to the X-13's garage and turned to follow Dean and Triana. He suddenly felt tired and spent. His hands trembled. His legs were weak. he had looked death in the eye and death had blinked.

This time.

He wanted to do nothing more than sleep but a look at his watch told him he had only two hours before he was to meet Kim for their date.

Kim and her stupid role-playing game.

Gary so wanted to call it off. Reschedule for another day. Anything. But the thought of having sex with her later...

Gary had yet to realize it but men do stupid stuff when they think they'll get sex in the end. A hot shower and a quick nap, he thought, everything will be better after that.


	9. Chapter 9

Kim examined herself in the full-length tri-fold mirror inside the mission van. This was the first part of her test. Molotov Cocktease leaned against the edge of one of monitoring units in the front, watching her. A couple of Blackhearts were at their stations on the monitors.

Her make-up was flawless. She had worked for an hour to make it look as if she wasn't wearing any. She wore bright red lipstick, which she didn't consider that becoming but Molotov argued that men loved voluptuous red lips, so she wore overly red lips.

She wore a little black dress. It was made of a knit material so that it literal clung to her skin. Kim didn't like the dress either. Unless she remembered to suck in her stomach it would reveal the small paunch that anyone other than an anorexic thirteen year had. And because it clung so tightly she had to wear a thong to avoid the dreaded VPL (visible panty line). Kim didn't like the feel of a thong. She's almost rather go without panties at all but with the dress's tendency to raise up that wasn't a smart option. Still with the low neckline and high hem it did look good on her. She had the legs for it.

The bust too, but Cocktease had insisted on a up-lift bra that all but shoved her boobs up under her neck. Cocktease routinely lectured on how sex was the key to controlling men, and therefore busts should be high and mostly exposed, because that's what men liked. Kim suspected she had dated a lot more men than Cocktease had, with a better idea of what men looked for in a woman.

On her feet Kim had a pair of Victorian-style lace up ankle boots with three inch heels. Do-me boots as the girls called them. These were Blackheart specials with a knife built into the tips and a hypodermic into the stiletto heels. The hypo injected a hypnotic that Cocktease claimed would make any man a hopelessly slave. She went on and on how she had led on Brock Samson for years following one injection of the drug. Kim had no idea who Brock Samson was. She didn't connect the name with the blond giant she's seen several times on the Venture Compound when she'd gone to visit Triana. She'd been introduced but since he was part of those 'other people', as she thought of the Ventures at the time, hadn't remembered his name. And not knowing his reputation as a killing machine she had no idea why Molotov was so pleased at manipulating him without ever having sex with him. It was so obvious that Madame Cocktease despised this Samson fellow, and any other man she had had to work with that Kim had come to think that Cocktease 'swung for the opposite team,' as her classmates in high school would say. For someone who lectured that sex was the key to controlling men and therefore required each candidate for the Blackhearts to go out, pick up a man, screw him and come away with some piece of personal effects to prove it, Kim suspected that Cocktease never had. But it didn't matter what the boss did, only in doing what she required. Gary was going to get the ride of his life tonight. While she was going to pass Molotov's field without having to whore with some stranger.

Molotov came over just then to check over Kim's outfit. Her hand on Kim's shoulder as she turned the girl around to look at her from all sides, made Kim shiver. "You look verry good tonight," Molotov drawled in Russian accented tones. "You well do well on this test, I think. There will be monitors inside and outside the bar so if there is any trouble you can call on them."

Hah! Kim thought. They'll be too busy observing my every move and criticizing everything I do. Rescue me, not likely.

Molotov patted her on the shoulder. "Now go out and show what you've learned," she said.

Kim climbed out of the large van. It was painted brown and had a UPS logo painted on the side so people would not wonder why it was parked there. She walked slowly towards the strip club, partly to get used to the high heels and partly to think about her future. She had heard about the Blackhearts recruiting and joined up for the training in weapons use and hand-to-hand combat. If one's going to be a professional super-villain one needed those kinds of skills. But the Blackhearts were just professional assassins and that was not Kim's goal. She was going to Arch Hank Venture come hell or high water. At some point she was going to have to make a break with the Blackhearts. She just wasn't sure when. According to the course study materials this was the last test before induction into the Blackhearts. Was that the end of their training or were there more advanced courses only for full members of the Blackhearts? If there were no advanced course then this would be as good a time as any to break with the assassins. But if there were advanced courses then she'd want to sample them before making any break.

And just what would the Blackhearts do if she did run away? There had been little discussion of that. The other trainees were all dedicated to becoming assassins. There was no question that they would stay with the Blackhearts. But hints and occasional asides suggested that no one left the Blackhearts alive. Well, she intended to. Maybe not tonight, but soon and ... whatever came of it, she'd face like - a man.

Kim entered Nightin'ales and walked across to the bar, selecting a stool at the bar away from anyone else. She had been conscious of the lull in the dull rumble of conversation as she sashayed across the floor. She ordered a martini, which was watery and tasted of cheap vodka. She looked around and couldn't spotted Gary anywhere. It wasn't like him to be late. And she wanted him to be there early so she wouldn't have the fend off all the horny men in the club. Shit, it was her clubbing days all over again. It was true. Life is High School all over again...

Gary turned the shower up as hot as he could stand before climbing in. Ducking his head under the hot spray brought a wave of pain he hadn't expected. He felt the right side of his face and saw his hand come away bloody. He stepped back out of the shower dripping water all over the floor and peered at himself in the fogged-over mirror over the sink. His eyes widen in surprise as he saw a huge bruise already yellowing the right side of his face along with numbers cuts a scraps. He must have gotten beat-up real good that afternoon fighting the Monarch's men. But he didn't remember getting hit. He had thrown 57 at the other henchmen come to kill him and thrown himself on the ground. That must have been it. He's hit the pavement hard; harder than he thought but was so pumped up with adrenaline that he hadn't notice his face smacking against the asphalt.

He couldn't go see Kim looking like this!

But he couldn't stand her up, either. He'd promised he'd come and bruise of not he was going.

He got back in the shower and finished washing. Afterwards he wrapped a pile of ice cubes from the minifridge in a towel and pressed it against his face, hoping the cold would keep the swelling down. He set a timer for one hour and laid down on his recliner to rest. He was asleep so fast he didn't recall putting his feet up.

The alarm brought him out of a strange dream where he was back in the cocoon fighting the Monarch while Dr, Mrs. The Monarch, dressed in the fur bikini of Rachel Welch's One Million BC costume cheered. He wasn't sure who she was cheering for. "Man, that was too Freudian," he muttered as he swung his feet to the floor and got up. He found his old high school graduation suit and put it on. Now that he was getting a paycheck maybe he could shop around for one that fit better, or at least wasn't so out-dated.

He grabbed the keys to Brock's Charger and, after making sure neither Hank or Dean was anywhere around drove out of the hanger it was stored in and turned down the road to the city.

He found a parking spot under a streetlight and sat in the car for a moment getting up his nerve. He didn't like role-playing much. At least the ones that didn't involved Star Wars or Dungeons and Dragons. It was easy to get into those characters. But pretending to be a business with important documents in his briefcase (Gary checked to see that he had remembered to bring along an old, scuffed up briefcase left in the guard shack) picking up some strange girl in a bar... He just didn't know how to play that. Aside from Kim he had never really talked to a girl and had no idea how one goes about picking one up. True, he had kind of picked up Kim that first day they met, but he also understood that Kim had been looking for just about any man that day and it was really the second day that they had discovered that they had things in common and liked being together.

With a grumbled 'here goes' he got out of the Charger and walked into the club.

He saw Kim right away. He almost stopped walking to gawp at her. She was stunning in a dress that seemed to leave little to the imagination and yet spiked imagination all around. She was surrounded by men but was ignoring them with practiced ease. He was going to sit at the other end of the bar but with all those men around her it seemed like it might be a better idea to take a booth.

He sat down and ordered a beer and some fries when the waitress came around. He realized that he hadn't eaten since morning. That was a long time ago. The fries would soak up some of the alcohol, he hoped, because he didn't want to get too drunk too quick tonight. Gary remembered what Dr. Mrs. The Monarch had said earlier that day about the Monarch putting some henchmen around the strip club. That may have been superseded by their attempt on his life later that afternoon but Gary didn't plan to take any chances.

The waitress had hardly left before another woman slipped into the booth. This was one of the strippers. She was emaciated the way heavy coke users tend to be. Her boobs were plastic and mounted high on her chest. She leaned against him and started talking nonsense about not seeing him in a while. He let her go on for a while but when his beer and fries arrived he nudged her and said "Later."

She took the hint and left but Gary had barely finished savoring the taste of the first French fry when another weight eased into the seat beside him. "Buy a Lady a drink?" Kim asked in a husky voice.

Gary waved at his waitress.

Kim was about to say something else when she got a good look at his face. "Oh, my god, Gary," she gasped. "What happened?"

"Slipped in the shower and hit the door," he lied.

"Are you all right? You look terrible."

"I'll be find. It's just be tender for a couple days."

"Are you sure?" Kim reached over to touch the widening yellow bruise. She had a light touch but it still smarted.

Gary took her hand and moved it away. "Look," he said. "I've had a rough day. I'd rather not do this play-acting, OK. We can do that some other time."

"Oh, my god. Shit!" Kim suddenly went pale as she glanced around the room. A woman in the back of the room, dressed all in black had opened her large purse and pulled out a cell phone. She spoke into the phone for only a moment.

"Busted." Kim announced. "look - ah, Gary, I've got to go. I don't know that I'll be able to see you again. But if I can I want to hook up again. OK? You've been the nicest man I've ever know, and I've known a few." She leaned in and kissed him lightly on the lips and was gone before Gary had opened his eyes.

The woman Kim had stared at a moment before was getting out of her seat. She had the phone to her ear again. A shout from the bouncer told him that Kim had just fled the room. The woman in black was close behind. The bouncer tried to stop her and she hit him with well trained chop to the neck. He was flopping on the ground as Gary jumped over him and run out into the parking lot.

Kim, and the woman in black were no where to be seen

He ran down the block hoping to catch sight of either Kim or her strange pursuer but all he saw were a number of black jumpsuited women piling out of a parked UPS truck. They split into teams heading in all directions. Blackhearts. Why would Kim be a target of the Blackhearts he wondered.

He walked back to the parking lot where he was accosted by the bouncer who told him he was going back inside to pay his bar tab or else. Gary popped him on the chin, laying the bouncer out on the driveway. It felt good to hit something. Then he dragged the man to the sidewalk and tucked a twenty into his palm since the man was only trying to do his job.

In the Charger Gary drove around town for an hour or so, looking for Kim. He saw a lot of teams of Blackhearts running this way and that but of Kim he saw nothing. She had evaporated into thin air.

Eventually Gary gave up and returned to the Venture Compound, parked the Charger exactly in the same spot from which he had taken it so many times in hopes that Brock Samson, whenever he returned would not notice that he had been using it. The two hundred miles he had put on it would be more of a giveaway than it being parked slightly different from where Brock had left it.

He was too absorbed in his thought to realize that the lights were on in the guard shack until he went to flip the light switch up and realized that it already was.

"I'm dead," he thought then realized that it was only Dean Venture waiting for him.

"Gary I can't sleep," he began.

"Dean, whatever it is, I can't deal with it now."

"But this is important."

"I don't care. I just lost my girlfriend, I think, and I don't even know why. I'm a just little too confused to give a rat's ass about your problems."

"You got dumped? That sucks." Dean commiserated.

"I'm not even sure I got dumped. We were having drinks and all of a sudden she says 'I gotta go,' and she's gone. Apparently being chased by a Blackhearts assassin or something. Get out of the recliner, that's mine!"

Dean got out of the chair and Gary dropped on to it in a limp pile. "Talk to me in the morning," he told the boy, closing his eyes.

"No! I came out here to get an answer and I'm not leaving until I get it, damn it!" Dean sputtered. Gary opened his eyes and looked at the boy. He stood before him hands clenched at his side, almost trembling with fury. He considered the chances of Dean just going away. "OK, what the hell do you need to know?" Gary said with a sigh. He tried some deep breathing to calm his nerves.

"Why did you call me 'Highlander'?"

"I never called you Highlander." Gary answered absent-mindedly. Right after the words were out of his mouth he remembered that he had - and why.

"Yes you did. It was that time last year when you were still working for the Monarch. You and your buddy, the tall guy, were chasing after Hank and me with a sword. You called me Highlander and was trying to cut off my head. I looked up Highlander in the Internet today when we were at the library. It was a movie about an bunch of guys who were immortal and could only die if someone cut off their heads. And if they did they would absorb all the power and knowledge of the other. So calling me 'Highlander' is a very weird yet very specific thing to say. Are you saying that I'm immortal? That I can't be killed?"

Gary licked suddenly dry lips and wondered how he was going to answer this. "I was just messing with you," he hazard. "Of course you can be killed."

"Well, what about that time, it must have been two years ago when you took one look at me and almost fainted? Were you messing with me then?"

That must have the time shortly after he and 24 had blown the boys across the highway with a loaded shotgun. Finding them alive after having clearly killed them had been a shock. Yet, at the time he had never thought about the boys being cloned.

"I can't tell you."

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't" Gary told me.

"It's my dad isn't it. he doesn't want to be embarrassed by my tell-all book."

"It goes higher than your old man. It goes all the way up to the top. They don't want you publishing your book."

"Why? What could there be in my book that would be that shocking?"

"It's not up to me. They flew Brock Samson in to tell me I got to stop you from writing this book."

"Brock was here and didn't stop in to say 'hello'?"

"He was telling me that he'd kill me if I didn't get you to drop your book. I don't think he was feeling very warm and fuzzy just then." Gary paused, considered what he should and could say. "Look, if it were up to me I'd tell you want the deal is but they say it would drive you and your brother crazy? So I can't."

"Drive me crazy?" Dean echoed with a bitter laugher. "There are guying shooting at me nearly every day. People don't know try to kill me! I've being chased by monsters from under the earth, under the sea, from outer space, alien dimensions, from the future, from the past! I don't think there is anything that could be so shocked, so much more shocking that that, that it would drive me crazy!"

"Dean, it's not up to me. I think you're right. I think you could handle this. But they also said it could bring about the end of civilization. And that part kind if made sense."

Dean laughed bitterly. "I'm more of a threat to myself than I am to civilization!"

"Go to bed, Dean. I can't tell you anything about this and I'm tired. I want to sleep. Maybe things will look different in the morning."

"It's the clones, isn't it. All those helper clones Pop was going to surprise Hank and me with come Christmas. Just think what a mad dictator could do knowing that he could grow an army of fanatical clones in his laboratory..."

Gary half rose out of his recliner at that. There in a nutshell Dean had guessed it. But when Dean didn't say any more Gary realized that he had still failed the make the final connection - that he was one of that army of clones his father had been growing like mushrooms in his basement lab.

"You know I don't actually have to put that in my book," Dean said. "It could be something I'd know and I don't have to tell." Dean sounded hopeful. "I have got to learn every thing there is about me, and pop and grandpa Venture. What happened to mom and everything. But I guess I don't have to put them into a book. Do you think your bosses would be happy if I kept up my research but didn't write anything down?"

"You'll have to get your father on board with that but..." Gary shrugged his shoulders. "I was just told to get you to not publish a tell-all book. If you're willing to not publish it, then I'm happy. I'll run it up to HQ tomorrow. Now get the hell out of here so I can get some sleep!" He folded his arms and rested his chin on his chest. "Turn the light out when you leave ... and set the lock. I'm tired of having visitors."

Moments later Gary heard the lock turn on the door but it was some time before sleep caught up with him.

The point to sleeping in your clothes on a recliner in front of a security monitor board was to be able to respond to an emergency at a moment's notice. It helps if you're not dead-dog tired and only had a couple hours of sleep.

Gary's first respond when the alarm started sounding was to roll over and swat at the non-existent alarm clock on the non-existent night stand that once stood beside his bed when he still lived at home. Only when his hand thumped against the side of the recliner instead of on the clock did he actually wake up. It took a moment for him to recall what a code 5 was (fire alarm on the grounds) and where building 14 was (half way back of the compound) but he was out of the chair in seconds, ripping off the suit coat and tie (it was a clip-on) he was still wearing The pants and dress shirt would have to take their chances, but he did take time to kick off his dress shoes and lace up his combat boots. He made a quick call to 9-1-1 then, grabbing the large fire extinguisher from the floor beside the door, he raced out into the night.

As he got to the distant building he saw what seemed like a large creature dragging a burning branch towards the woods that terminated not far from the building itself. The creature seemed to hear Gary's running, dropped the branch it had been dragging and vanished into the woods. Was that Triana's walking tree he wondered, and what was it doing with the fire?

He paused at the corner of the building to talk in the whole picture of the situation. There was a large pile of brush laid up against the side of the abandoned manufacturing building. It was burning merrily due to some kind of acceleratant, probably diesel fuel from its smell. But the fire hadn't really set into the wood yet, it was mostly burning off the oil. Branches lay scattered around the burning brush pile, each pulled far enough away so that the flames, not drawing any heat from the burning pile, were quickly dying out. Which meant, to Gary's surprise, that the walking tree thing or whatever it was had been trying to put _out_ the fire. Why would it do that? To keep the woods from catching on fire?

Gary scurried from smoldering branch to smoldering branch poofs blasts of diatomaceous earth on each flame before turning to the main pile and hosing it with larger blasts of the flame-proof dust. He was just stomping out the last embers when another alarm sounded through his wrist two-communicator. another fire, the relay said, at building 7, which was way on the other side on the compound. Gary grabbed up the fire extinguisher, hoping there was enough charge left in it to deal with this fire. He was half way across the vast open field between buildings 14 and 7 when he realized that he was being played for a chump.

The fire at Bldg 14 had been set to draw him away from the Guard Shack. The fire at Bldg 7 was, undoubtedly set to draw him yet farther away from the obvious target - The Venture Residence! The shooter had come back and this time intended to make her hit up close and personal.

Gary dropped the fire extinguisher where he stood and turned back to the Residence. As he ran he tried operating the two-way communicator, "Doctor Venture! Doctor Venture! Wake Up!" he screamed. "This is a Code 1 emergency! Code 1, get in the Panic Room! Now! Get the boys in the Panic Room!"

There was no reply from Dr. Venture. Did that mean he was already dead? Or had Gary simply screwed up with the communicator, in the dark, while running. It would be time to find out soon enough.

He could see a light coming from a general workshop area. It was where the Panic Room was located. The room was steel plated and impregnable, except for the door out of the room. That was armored but it was a door, a weak point in the overall defenses of the Panic Room. If he were trying to get into the Panic Room that's where he'd attack.

There was an outside door to the workshop but it was supposed to be locked and in any case any good foe would have barred the door, so Gary didn't stop or slow down as he neared the door. Instead he threw himself bodily against the door, ,hoping to crash through it. For once he was glad of his 250 pounds (OK, maybe more like 270) pounds weight.

He hit the door with a jarring thud. The panels rattled in their frame but held. Gary barely had time to think "shot," when the bullet-proof glass in the window, exploded out of its frame and he oozed through the small opening to land on the floor on top the spiderwebbed but still intact bullet-proof glass. He didn't have time to make mental notes about improving the building security later.

He clawed his way back to his feet and staggered towards the door of the Panic Room. The shooter was there, just as he expected, carefully packing the putty-like C4 explosive around the lock on the door. She had already packed the two hinges with putty. In he center of the door was a small square box with three leads coming out. Two were already pushed into the C4 on the hinges. The third, for the moment, dangled freely.

The shooter was just beginning to react to Gary's arrival as he hurled himself at her. Later he would recall how oddly she was dressed, in a tight-fitting black catsuit, with a blue T-shirt over it and a grey ski mask and white running shoes. The ski mask made sense since it protected her identity but the T-shirt? And why ruin the effect with white shoes?

But at the moment he was too busy trying to grab the gun she had pulled out of a large, cloth satchel and was trying to aim at him. He got one hand on her arm but with the other he had to fend off her clawing hand. They wrestled with the gun for a moment, rolling over and roll on the floor. Suddenly the gun went off. His hand had twisted hers, causing the finger to press down on the trigger. The finger was jammed there and the automatic fired round after round until its clip was empty. Thinking the threat from the gun was over, Gary let go of that hand and tried to pin her to the floor, She slapped along side the face with the hot, empty gun. The flat steel barrel sent sparks flying through his vision and m momentarily stunned, she slipped out of his grip.

"Hey!" Doctor Venture had been watching the fight through the glass in the Panic Room door. "I just had that floor repaired! That's coming out of your pay!" he shouted.

"Ah, Dad," Dean was looming over his father's shoulder, "he is trying to keep us from being blown up."

"He's doing a lousy job of it. Brock would have killed that assassin in ten seconds."

"Brock's not here," Hank was on the other side of their father.

"And we get stuck with inferior goods. Colonel Gathers is going to hear about this," he said, referring to the Director of the OSI.

Through blurry eyes Gary saw her fiddling with the ski mask. Someone during their struggles it had gotten turned around so the eye-holes no longer faced front. When she couldn't find where the eye-holes had gotten to, she ripped the mask off and charged after Gary who was picking himself off the floor. He barely saw the foot coming in a ground kick in time to turn sideway and let it slip past, a hard hit to abdomen but not the knock-out punch it could have been if it had connected with his chin.

He turned the twist into a full spin and threw himself at her when he again was facing her. They fell against the door in a pile. He was trying to get her in a half-Nelson when his eyes clears for a moment.

"Kim!" he shouted.

"Gary?" the shooter shouted back. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, still struggling to get free.

"I work here!" he said. "What are you doing here?"

"You never said you worked for the Ventures?"

"You never said you were trying to kill them. Why?"

"I went on a date with Hank Venture." She slipped out of Gary's hands and sprang to her feet. Gary got up as well, making a point of standing between her and her toolkit.

"You're going to kill him over that? Everybody has a bad date once in a while. That's no reason to kill them!"

"Isn't it, Gary. Isn't?"

"No. No, it isn't."

"For me it is. All through rehab the one thought that kept me together, that kept me going was that someday I would be out of there and finish killing Hank Venture! If I don't kill him I have nothing to live for!"

"Not even me? Is this why you ran out on our date tonight, so you could lay your traps while I was looking for you in town?"

Kim looked confused for a moment, apparently having forgotten about it. "That had nothing to do with this. Well, it forced me to accelerate my plans but. Look, I made a bad deal and it kind of blew up in my face. Once I decided to become a super-villain I needed some quick training in the basics - guns, explosives, hand-to-hand combat - so I joined the Blackhearts Assassins league..."

"Your Conflict Resolution Systems?"

"Doesn't assassination resolve conflicts? I thought it was pretty clever." Kim and Gary were at this point standing rather casually amidst the debris of their earlier flight. Arms crossed, arguing like lovers rather than killers.

"You know if you wanted training the Guild offers a wide range of Introductory Classes in villainy."

"There's a guild for super-villains? Well it's too late to worry about that. I signed up with the Blackhearts and to graduate you have to seduce some stranger, take him to bed then steal something of value from him. I thought I could use you. That was what the whole role-playing things was all about. But when I saw how beat up you looked I forget all about you being a stranger. The Blackhearts observer must have spotted that and ratted me out. So I had to run. I didn't mean to leave you in the lurch like that. Because, honestly, Gary you are the nicest man I've ever met.

"You realize that the only way you'll get to Hank Venture is over my dead body?"

"Gary it doesn't have to be that way. All you have to do with turn your back for a moment."

"I can't do that.

"Not even for me?"

"Kim, not for you, not for my mother, Dr. Girlfriend or all the women in the world. When I left the Monarch I made a vow to turn my life around. To be the good guy. To do something of value for the world."

"You worked for the Monarch? Cool."

"I work for OSI now. My job is to stop super-villains. Even the one's I'm in love with."

"If you loved me you'd do it?" She said.

"If you loved me, you wouldn't ask me to do that," he replied. "Anyway, why Hank? It's not like he's much of a challenge. I mean, there are so many other super-scientist hanging around that could use a good Arching. And would give you a better run for your money."

"Hey Pop, what's going on," Hank, inside the Panic Room was asking. "I can't hear anything."

"It would appear that your bodyguard has been dating your assassin," Dr. Venture replied tartly.

"She's pretty hot. I wouldn't mind dating her."

"You already did, doofus," Dean said over the top of his father's head. "That's Triana's girlfriend, Kim. We went on a double date that one time when Phantom Limp tried to kill us. We were stuck in the bathroom and Brock broke in all naked and bloody..."

"Oh, yeah. Man's she's hot. Do you think she'd go out on a second date."

"No, Hank. She's trying to kill you. Apparently over the first date," Dr. Venture interjected. "I don't think a second date is going to happen."

Dean was fumbling in his pants pocket. "What are you doing?" Dr, Venture asked exasperatingly.

"I've got to call Triana about this."

"It's three o'clock in the morning. I don't think Dr. Orpheus's daughter will want to be woken up at this hour to be told we're all going to die." Dr. Venture was explaining but Dean wasn't listening.

"Hey, Triana, guess who's in town?" Dean said excitedly. "No, Kim! Yeah, she's back. She right here... We're in the panic Room. ... No, Kim's outside...Uh, because she's trying to kill us, I guess. Say, maybe you could talk her out of that, you know, seeing how you're best friends and all that... Ok, great. Later."

"Triana's coming over to talk to Kim," Dean told his father.

"Great, more collateral damage. While you've got that thing out, how 'bout calling 9-1-1 and ordering up a bomb squad. Just in case Hank's trollop isn't willing to listen to reason..."

"I think she's Gary's trollop, pop," Hank corrected.

"She wants to kill you. I think that takes precedents."

"I can't believe you picked me up just to get in closer to the Ventures," Gary was saying, angrily.

"I didn't pick you up for that. I didn't know you worked for the Ventures. If I had I would have kept out of sight just in case you suspected me. I picked you up from the first because I liked you. You were straight, honest, friendly. I've been surrounded by so many liars, cranks and psychos for so long that it was such a relieve to find someone I didn't have to be on my guard with. I wasn't stringing you along."

"And all the times you were attacking the Ventures you never noticed that I was their security officer. I can't believe you didn't know it was me."

"I never saw your face. Either you were too far away or had your back turned towards me,, or you had those stupid leaves covering your face. You could have been any over-weight security guard. Not that you're fat or anything but, you know what I mean."

"Kim!" It was Triana calling from the busted door of the workroom. She was wrapped in one of her father's old robes. She looked excitedly into the room before finding her old girlfriend and Gary in a stand-of outside the Panic Room. She could just make out Dean in the window of the door waving at her. "What are you doing?" she asked but never got an answer.

At the first sound of Triana's voice Gary eyes flicked off Kim to see where Triana was. "Stay out of here!" he ordered and in that moment of distraction Kim threw herself into a roll under Gary's legs, ending up next to her tool satchel. Her hand snaked into and came out with a modified TV remote. She waggled the device in Gary's face as he turned to grab at her. "I'm going to do it!" she laughed and pressed "enter."

The world exploded.

OK, maybe just a small part of it. The explosion from the two primed C4 charges threw Gary across the room. He slammed against the wall with a heavy, spine-crushing thud. An instant later something soft but heavy crashed into him, knocking out what little breath was left in him. He slumped to the floor thinking "Brock..." He was unconscious before he could finish the thought, that Brock would be pissed at him for failing.

Triana had ducked behind the door the instant she'd seen Kim come up with the detonator. The blast tore through the doors, tearing them off their hinges. When the sound of falling things ceased she looked in. Counters near the blast zone had been ripped from their mounting and flung about the room. Farther away from the Panic Room the blast had sweep everything from the countertops and piled them up in a mound along the rooms walls. The door to the Panic Room itself was bent and twisted, held in place by the deadbolt lock that Kim had not had time to prime. She caught a glimpse of red out of the corner of her eye. Gary lay slumped on the ground, bleeding from numerous cuts. On top of him was Kim. Hair half blown away, her clothes burned off over half her body. She was bleeding profusely as well.

"Dad!" she screamed.

"Pumpkin?" he materialized in a cloud of sulfurous gases. "Are you hurt?"

"Kim's dying!" Triana found she was crying. She hadn't cried since she was eight. "Do something."

"There's nothing within my power to do," he said sadly. "However she is not dying. I do not sense the ingathering of morbidity that accompanies death."

"Stop talking and do something!" Later Dr, Orpheus would realize that it must have been a moment like that when his wife had decided to leave him. When he had stood by and done nothing. Because when magic wasn't involved he didn't know what to do. Stung by guilt and Triana's plea he summoned up all his magic and teleported all the towels from their apartment into his hand. He started handing them to Triana who wiped off some of Kim's blood, then wrapped the towels around where the blood was still leaking.

In the Panic Room Dr. Venture shook his head and slowly got to his feet. He was surprised to find himself alive and reasonably intact. He surveyed the damaged to the room. The storage shelves had been knocked over, spilling more junk everywhere. He found the boys under one of the shelves, lying still, looking pale. He pulled the shelf off them and felt for a pulse on Hank. "Live, damn you," he groaned, "I can't replace you anymore!" His fingers were so jittery that I couldn't tell if he felt a pulse or not. "Come on, come on. I've sold my soul to the devil too many times already for you to die now."

"Hey, Pop, what's up?" He turned to see Dean sitting up. His eyes were still a little unfocused but he was smiling his usual goofy grin.

"Are you OK?" Dr. Venture asked.

"Oh, I'm fine. We're indestructible, you know."

Dean never saw it coming. Venture's eyes bugged out and his lips pulled back from his teeth, his hand rose and felt with such force that Dean was thrown against the wall.

"Don't every say or think that again," he snarled between clenched teeth. "You are not indestructible. You are the easiest thing in the world to kill. Never forget that. When you died there's no coming back, no second chances. You have to live every day of your life as if it was the only day you'll get. Because...because..." he stopped, suddenly exhausted, drained by his sudden rage.

"Because what, Pop? Is it something about what you don't want us to know."

"Who told you there was something I didn't want you to know?" Venture demanded.

"You did, Pop, when you told me I couldn't write that tell-all book."

"There's nothing. I'm not hiding anything from you." he got up and walked over the Panic Room door and tried to push it around so they could out of the room.

Hank was sitting up by now. He stared in amazement as the welt covering all of Dean's face. "Why, Dean? Pop has yelled at us a lot but he's never hit us before."

"I think I'm going to cry for a little while."

"You do that. I'm going to see if Gary and that hot lady killer are OK." He patted Dean on the shoulder. "Remember, bro. We're Team Venture. We can do this.

Gary opened his eyes to the smell of burnt nitrates and the sound of weeping. Kim lay in his lap, buried under a mountain of towels. Except for a gurgling rasp that sounded like a puncture lung she was as still as the dead. As his eyes regained their focus he could see Triana kneeling because them holding Kim's hand.

"Why did she do it?" she whispered.

"You knew Kim?" Gary asked instead.

"She's my best friends all through high school. She was the greatest."

"High school? She's your age!" Gary was stunned He had always assumed that Kim was close to his age. She certainly acted that way. "You never told me you knew Kim," he said.

"Of course I did. I was always talking about Kim."

"You maybe just talked about this friend you had. You never mentioned her name."

"I thought she was still in Florida with that holyroller group."

"And I never said her name to you because I figured you weren't interested. If one or the other of us had said something we might have avoid all this."

He lay there for a moment too winded for long conversations. "Someone call EMS? he asked. Triana nodded.

"When did she get all messed up about Hank?" Gary asked.

"I didn't know she was," Triana said. She sucked up the mucus in her nose and looked up at Gary. "It was maybe two years back. Dr. Venture wanted the boys out of the house that night so he volunteered to pay for a double date. It didn't go well, Hank and Dean being who they are, but I don't think it was that bad. But then we met this woman with a really deep voice..."

"Dr. Girlfriend?"

"I think that was the name on the card she gave Kim. She thought Kim already was a super-villain and suggested Kim hook up with her." Triana laughed humorlessly. "Kim thought she was hitting on her. If you can imagine that."

"Let's leave the bitch out of it."

"Anyway I remember Kim saying she was going to do it, and Hank would be her first victim but I never thought she meant it."

"She said it was the only thought that got her thought rehab. Crap. The first time in my life I ever had a girlfriend and she wants to kill the guy I'm hired to protect."

"That sucks. Say, I think I hear the ambulance."

"Go and direct them here. I think we'll be OK for that little time."

While he waited Gary stroked her blood-soaked hair. A dysfunctional childhood and a life-time of henching left him ill prepared to comfort someone. But while she didn't speak or open her eyes her breathing, which had had a kind of panting quality to it slowed down to a slow but regular pattern.

He thought about the future. It didn't look pretty. Unless something changed it would end with him either killing her or Kim killing him.

Eventually four women in ill-fitting surgical scrubs came into the room wielding a Gurney. They bustled around Kim: shining a light into her eyes, taking her pulse and blood pressure, fixing a pulse-oxy clip to one of her fingers. The woman carefully peeled away the many towels wrapped around Kim and taped compressed over the cuts that still oozed. Finally they fitted a neck brace around her head before lifting her onto the Gurney and piloted it out of the room. In all that time they didn't so much as look in Gary's direction.

With several gasps of pain he finally forced himself to his feet and staggered over to the door. Triana was starting there watching the woman load the Gurney with Kim into the ambulance. They piled in after her and the truck started off.

Triana turned away and was startled to find Gary standing next to her, covered from head to heels in blood, much of it his. "They didn't take you with them?" she asked, confused.

"Those weren't EMS techs," he replied. "Did you notice that they were all woman and their clothes didn't fit. Those were Blackhearts. Probably waylaid the real EMS people and stole their clothes as well as the van. Kim said she was running away from them."

"Will she be all right?"

"If they wanted her dead she wouldn't have left this compound alive, so I think she'll be alright.

"What about you?"

"I'll live. That's what henchman do. We live."


End file.
